


Breaking the Bonds

by took_skye



Category: Criminal Minds
Genre: Closeted Character, Coming Out, Drug Addiction, Hurt/Comfort, Love Triangles, M/M, Season/Series 05
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-25
Updated: 2013-02-01
Packaged: 2017-11-26 21:58:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 22
Words: 52,392
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/654842
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/took_skye/pseuds/took_skye
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An AU take on Criminal Minds Season 5 concerning SSA Aaron Hotchner's method of dealing with The Reaper case and Dr Spencer Reid's attempts to help him through it...with a little Ethan (Reid's friend from Season 2's "Jones") thrown into the mix.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Diagnosing the Disease

**Author's Note:**

> This was posted earlier on my personal Livejournal, but I felt I should post it here as well...if for nothing else than posterity. I may make minor changes from the original based on need.

  
_I don't like the drugs but the drugs like me. ~ Marilyn Manson_

***

Reid saw it first…clear as day he saw it. The detached, glazed over, look. The late arrivals and early departures. The overall withdrawn behavior all worked to point Reid to the determination that Hotch’s problems extended beyond the loss of his ex-wife and son to Witness Protection. Beyond all that pain and sorrow that was attached to The Reaper. Reid’s guess at the problem wasn’t anything he was willing to share with the rest of the team until he was sure though. Certain it was what it was and that there wasn’t another solution.

He set his plan in motion the moment they got a new case, discreetly pushing Morgan towards the idea of having team members share hotel rooms in exchange for staying at a better place than normal. It worked and Reid immediately offered to share with Hotch, which Morgan thought was Reid’s attempt at getting closer to the other agent if his smile was any indication. Morgan wasn’t completely wrong, though Reid doubted his friend could guess at the true reason behind his desire. To save his friend from himself…

Hotch brought the bags up to the room while Reid finished checking in for them. The moment he was alone he began to unpack – he never could live directly out of his bag like some of the others could – and it was then that he noticed something was missing. Something crucial, something he couldn’t live without. He began to tear through his bag, his worry growing into annoyance into anger into borderline rage as he kicked his bag in frustration.

“What’s wrong?” Reid asked curiously as he entered the room through the door behind the desperate agent.

Hotch turned, his eyes flashing in a rage before quickly relaxing as he forced a smile. “I, um, I think I might’ve forgotten to pack something,” he turned back to his bag to check all the pockets once more. “Not a big issue, just a minor annoyance.”

Reid nodded before setting Hotch’s key card on the dresser and going to pull his messenger bag off over his head and set it on what would be his bed. “What is it you forgot to pack?”

“What?” Hotch barely looked up as he continued to search.

“What did you forget to pack, Hotch?"

“Some medicine.”

“I thought your treatment for the attack was over a few weeks ago?” The whole team was aware that for a number of weeks after Foyet’s attack Hotch had to undergo a drug regime to prevent any possibilities of infection and to help deal with residual pain. But that time had passed at least a month ago.

“What are you, my mother?” Hotch snapped, exacerbated. First he couldn’t find his Oxycotin and now Reid was bothering him with questions that were absolutely none of his business.

Reid wasn’t deterred by the outburst, he simply took a moment before pressing on. “No, of course not, but I’m your friend.”

“Then help me look for my bottle.” Hotch ordered much in the same manner as he would while they were working a tense case. He moved onto the clothes he’d put in the draws, checking his spare pants’ pockets, and then going to the closet to check the jacket he’d taken off when he first entered the room.

“They, uh...they aren’t there, Hotch,” Reid said with as steady a voice as he could manage. He normally wasn’t nervous around Hotch at all; the man was a trusted friend and, when he’d first joined the team, a protector of sorts. But Reid knew the changes that could take place in someone when their need to hide from their own pain led them to try and obliterate reality completely with the use of drugs and then those drugs took hold.

Hotch stopped searching his jacket pocket to glare at Reid. For what felt like eternity the senior agent just stared, trying to read Reid. Trying to figure out what he knew and what he was guessing at; Hotch wasn’t willing to give up anything that wasn’t already known.

“I took them,” Reid continued.

“Return them.”

“No.”

“Damn it, Reid, they aren’t yours!” Hotch snapped, shutting the hall closet door before heading over towards Reid. “Now give them back to me.”

Reid stepped back, around, to put the beds between himself and Hotch as a precaution. “No, Hotch, I can’t.”

“Can’t?” The man’s eyes narrowed almost dangerously.

“Won’t,” Reid corrected, his eyes never leaving his friends as his determination set deeper and deeper into his heart. Hotch might hate him for this for a long while, but in the end it was what needed to be done. He took a deep breath, shifted some as he tried to stand up straight, and then went bravely on. “You don’t need them anymore and you shouldn’t have them.”

“Is that so?” Hotch closed in, slipped around the beds as he approached Reid. Though clearly sarcastic Hotch did not smile. “And you’ve gathered this from your years researching three-body problems and what, Dr Reid? The philosophy behind life?” He mocked as he got closer still, stopping when just a few feet from Reid.

“No, I gathered it from the years of living I’ve actually done,” Reid replied, still not wavering.

“You mean you think I’m addicted because you were?” Hotch accused. If he were honest with himself, truly honest, he knew that his desire to escape the pains of both body and mind had developed into an unhealthy need for the small green tablets with _OC_ stamped on them. But he wasn’t truly honest with himself; the drugs kept him from ever having to be.

Reid seemed to consider the question a moment. It wasn’t that he didn’t know the answer; he just wasn’t sure how Hotch, who seemed to be getting ever closer to him, would take the answer. He licked his lips in worry a moment, then ran a hand through his hair before finally replying. “I know you’re addicted because I was, Hotch. I know how it started, how it’s progressed, and exactly why it’s continuing.”

“Really?” Hotch arched a brow some. “How about you enlighten me, Dr Reid?” He was now just a foot from Reid and while it did cross his mind that he might be growing increasingly intimidating it didn’t cross his mind to care. He wasn’t addicted and he didn’t like anyone suggesting otherwise. Addiction required a loss of control that Hotch never allowed himself. It was a giving over of his fate that he fought to prevent Foyet from accomplishing over and over again. His fate would be always, solely, in his hands. It had to be or else Hotch wasn’t Hotch; he wasn’t the man he’d made himself into through years of hard work and determination. He was someone, something, else entirely.

Reid still did not back down even while Hotch glared at him. He stood his ground firmly, stubbornly, and answered. “You needed sleep, or maybe just some way to forget...forget everything that happened. Then you found that, without the drugs, everything not only came back, but came back tenfold.” Hotch seemed to pause his advance and eye Reid, though his body language let Reid know how thin the ice he was on was. “The problem is, uh, soon, you’ll find that you’ve been sucked so far into that false world the drugs create to help you cope that nothing’s clear on the drugs, but, uh...you’re also too terrified to face the world without them.”

“I’m not an addict,” Hotch growled out, covering the last foot between him and Reid in one step. He nearly towered over Reid at the moment, intentionally standing up straighter than normal to do so.

“You will be,” Reid replied with a surety that he both felt and thought his friend might respect at the moment. He found he was wrong as he was slammed up into the wall behind him hard enough that, for a moment, his eyes lost their focus.

“I am NOT an addict,” Hotch seethed, holding Reid by the lapels of his jacket in just the manner that, no doubt, hundreds of schoolyard bullies had.

Reid didn’t move, but not because he was stunned. He’d calculated the odds that Hotch’s first reaction to confrontation about this, something that could be construed as a form of weakness, would be outright physical aggression and knew it to be high. He didn’t move because he needed to keep Hotch from thinking this would be a battle he could win with brute strength. “But you will be,” he repeated slowly, firmly, and barely above a whisper.

Hotch’s glare intensified with a new wave of rage, then he sneered. “Fuck you, Reid,” he snarled before letting go of his friend’s clothing with a shove that caused the back of Reid’s head to bounce off the wall. He then turned, grabbed his key card off the dresser, and left the room without another word or look back.

Reid stayed against the wall and watched as Hotch stormed of. When he heard the automatic lock of the hotel room door click he finally let out a breath and leaned forward some as he set his hands on his legs. Only now did he let his shakiness show. His theories concerning his friend, a man he’d looked up to for years, were confirmed. The disease was diagnosed. Now came the hard parts, all the ones that actually involved Hotch.

***

_"Drugs are a bet with the mind." ~ Jim Morrison_  



	2. Breaking the Bonds

 

  
_Reality is just a crutch for people who can't cope with drugs. ~ Robin Williams_

***

After leaving the hotel room Hotch exited out the back to avoid the others and just walked the streets of the city they were currently in; he couldn’t even remember at the moment. He was furious at Reid, had more than half a mind to go back up to the hotel and beat the snot out of the kid, but he didn’t. He couldn’t, he knew that, but that didn’t lessen the desire to. Who was Reid to accuse him of addiction? Reid was the addict! He was just…deflecting or transferring or whatever other psychological term that escaped Hotch at the moment. God, he couldn’t even think straight from the rage!

He never returned to the hotel. He simply hailed a cab when he felt calm and collected enough to meet up with everyone at the police station. Throughout much of the time in the field Hotch chose to ignore Reid outside a nasty glare or two, even when he was paired with the agent to examine the latest crime scene…not that he particularly wanted to be paired with anyone else either. He didn’t trust Reid at the moment, didn’t trust Reid not to bring up his suspicions, as wrong as they were, to the others on the team.

Reid watched carefully throughout the day. He watched Hotch’s energy drain from his body, then his color from his face. Maybe it was cruel, denying Hotch in this way knowing full well what would happen next, but Reid knew it had to be done. Not for him, he already had all the evidence he needed to know Hotch had developed a dependency, but for Hotch himself. Everyone knew the senior agent would push and push and push his body, refusing to stop until something happened that forced him to. Hotch would go without second thought until his body snapped. Reid needed Hotch’s body to snap before he even considered he might have an issue beyond his control.

***

By the time the team called it a day (and night) Hotch could barely move. His muscles ached so badly they twitched. He was exhausted. He felt sick to his stomach. For once in his life Hotch didn’t give a damn about the case, he just wanted to curl up in bed and sleep. He got about as far as the hotel room before he had to shut himself in the bathroom to deal with his sickness in a more private matter. When he emerged about ten minutes later he found Reid sitting on one of the beds flipping through the channels with a faint smile. “Having fun?” he muttered bitterly.

“There’s, uh, two Oxycontin pills and some ginger ale on the bedside table for you,” Reid signaled to them with his hand, ignoring Hotch’s question.

Hotch gave a wary look. Was this some sort of test or trick? He looked to the pills and soda then back to Reid. “I thought you said I was an addict? Are you in the habit of giving addicts drugs?”

Reid sighed at the TV and shut it off before turning to look at Hotch. “It’s not safe to go cold turkey on drugs like Oxycontin.”

“And heroin?” Hotch snipped, feeling the need to point out the reason he felt Reid was even harping on his use of the prescription meds was because of Reid’s own, former, addiction.

“And heroin,” Reid confessed, then quickly moved on. “So, how’re you feeling right now, Hotch?” This wasn’t about his addiction, it was about Hotch’s.

“I’m fine,” Hotch declared on instinct, an instinct that immediately gave him away as clearly as his pale skin and need to sit on the bed.

“So you’re not achy? Or tired? You didn’t get sick in the bathroom?”

“No.”

Reid knew he was lying, but simply shrugged and got up to collect the two pills on the small table. “Okay then, never mind.” He started to head past Hotch, pills in his hand.

Hotch watched the other man carefully…watched him get up, watched him scoop the Oxycontin into his hand, and watched him start to walk away. Without having control of his own actions he reached out to grab hold of Reid’s slender wrist. “What are you doing?”

Reid looked down at the man. “I’m throwing these out. I’ll probably throw out the rest of the bottle too,” he smiled softly. “If you’re not having withdrawal symptoms then maybe you were right, you’re not an addict and you won’t become one.”

Hotch’s eyes narrowed. “I’m not an addict.” He squeezed the other man’s wrist to accentuate his point.

“Exactly,” Reid smiled more. “So it’s not like you need the pills,” he shrugged and twisted his wrist in order to break Hotch’s hold and head into the bathroom. He tucked the pills into his pocket, tossed two ibuprofen into the toilet, and flushed to make the toss convincing.

Hotch stayed staring dumbfounded at the hand that once held Reid’s wrist so securely. How had the young man broken his hold so easily? Had Reid gained strength? Had he lost his? True, he was a little under the weather at the moment, but that shouldn’t matter, should it? If he couldn’t overpower Reid how did he expect to combat the UNSUB, a man who seemed to be targeting athletes exclusively?

“Well, I’m pretty tired,” Reid announced as he stepped out of the bathroom. “Could you, uh, toss me the sweats and tee shirt on the top of my bag, please?”

“Sure,” Hotch mumbled, though it took him a full 30 seconds to even find the strength to get up. He trudged across the carpeted hotel room, grabbed the clothing, and shuffled over to hand them to Reid. “Why don’t you ever unpack anything?” he asked as he leaned on the doorframe for support. He didn’t really care about the answer he just didn’t want to move again. His muscles felt as if they’d been pulverized and every single step sent shock waves over his body before settling into his stomach, which would first cramp and then flip.

Reid smiled as he took the clothes. “I don’t know. I guess I just figure...well...we’re only going to be staying in a hotel for, what? A week or so? Why unpack when you just have to repack in a few days anyway, right?” His smile grew as he stayed silent and watched Hotch try to remain upright against the wall before deciding it was enough. “Okay so, um, I’m going to change now.” He gave a look to signal Hotch to get out of the way of the door.

“Yeah, right,” Hotch winced as he forced himself to stand. “I, uh…I’m going to take the opportunity to change too, I guess.” This was the longest he’d gone without pain meds and right now only his stubborn refusal to admit his need (not even his want, his need) for the drugs kept him going. He couldn’t fold, he couldn’t let Reid win; Hotch could not confess a weakness like addiction.

Reid intentionally took double his time in preparing for the night so that Hotch could try and get comfortable. He wasn’t unsympathetic to Hotch’s plight, he knew exactly what the other agent was going through and what he would be going through soon enough, and it killed him. He could still clearly remember when he went through his detox, how painful and trying it was – he’d slipped twice in the first three days alone and that was with all his determination, with his admittance to having a problem...Hotch hadn’t even done that yet. But he needed to more than anything. Whatever Reid did to help wasn’t going to make an impact without Hotch conceding. Reid needed to hear Hotch confess his drug usage was a problem that he wasn’t in control of and if that meant having to break his friend first it would be exactly what Reid would do.

***

Hotch got about half an hour’s sleep before his stomach revolted once again and he had to scramble to the bathroom. The discomfort and pain he’d felt earlier was child’s play compared to what he felt now, it was beyond any illness he’d ever experienced. His body had a sheen of sweat, but he couldn’t stop shivering. Waves of cramps and nausea caused his stomach to empty quickly, though didn’t seem stop the need for his body to continue to its attempts to eject whatever crumb or drop might be left. After what felt like hours Hotch’s body gave him a moment’s peace in relenting and allowing him to lay out on the cool tiles of the bathroom.

It was the slam of the bathroom door that awoke Reid, though he didn’t move to help nor did he go back to sleep. He listened to Hotch’s moans of agony through the door as he slowly got up, rubbing his face to aid in waking, and searched his pants’ pockets for the two pills he’d hidden. He smiled when he found they were still there, that Hotch hadn’t found them, and set them back onto the bedside table before refilling the glass of ginger ale. When it went quiet in the bathroom he moved to the door, listened to Hotch’s heavy breathing a moment, and then knocked.

“Fuck…off!” Hotch croaked out in anger. Though beneath the anger was a deep-set shame. No one saw him this sick, not ever, and Reid...Reid looked up to him. How pathetic would he seem, how badly would the younger man think of him, if Reid saw him like this?

“Step away from the door, Hotch,” Reid told him before starting to open it. He slipped inside and closed the door behind him. “With drug use the dopamine release in the body is increased or, uh, enhanced in some way. Continued use results in lowered stimulation of what causes that dopamine release until, eventually, whatever feelings of euphoria you had from the drug are virtually gone...” he began as Hotch gave a groan. “When you stop taking the drug the activity in the nucleus accumbens, the part of the body that releases dopamine, falls dramatically below normal levels. It’s these lower levels and how they effect the brain that cause a person to seek out that initial drug again.”

Hotch groaned again, but this time found the ability to speak. “What are you babbling about?”

“It’s the definition of addiction, Hotch.” Reid stated as he went to sit on the floor next to his teammate’s prone form. “Would you like me to define physical dependency? Explain the reason why you’re as sick as you are right now?”

“No,” Hotch muttered before taking a deep breath that seemed to set the muscles in his chest and abs alight. “Please...don’t.” He didn’t want to hear about it; he just wanted it to stop. The gnawing pain throughout his body, the turmoil still swirling in the pit of his stomach, and the exhaustion of both his body and mind.

Reid nodded and simply looked at his friend a moment before speaking again. “Have you thought about what would happen if, for some reason, you couldn’t get a refill and were like this at home? If you were like this while Jack was with you?” He questioned pointedly, though softly. The question itself was enough to get Hotch to turn focus from the tiled floor to him. “I want to help you, Hotch, I really do. But you need to admit that….that this,” he set his hand within eye-line of Hotch on the floor and patted the ground. “This isn’t normal. This is something you need help with. Can you do that? Accept my help?”

Hotch’s eyes went from Reid’s hand before him to Reid’s face as he thought. _What if Jack was around while this happened? What if Jack needed him and he couldn’t even get his ass off the bathroom floor?_ He slowly closed his eyes and tried to move. It was almost impossible, his body felt like a sack, but as Reid moved to take his arm and help him Hotch was able to sit up and lean against the toilet for support. “I can’t let Jack see me like this. Not ever.” Reid nodded in agreement as Hotch took a deep, pained, breath before continuing. “I...don’t want the others to know, but...you’re right...” he looked down. “I need help.”

“No one will ever know, but me, Hotch. I promise,” Reid stated before carefully letting Hotch sit on his own as he went over to the tub. Thank god he’d done his homework before approaching Morgan and found a hotel with an actual tub that the FBI would still pay for. He set it up and started the water.

Hotch watched in silence before he made a slightly displeased face. “I don’t take baths.” Not since he was about five or six anyway.

Reid turned and gave the faintest hint of a smile. “Would you rather have to stand in a small, uncomfortable, shower?”

Hotch rolled his eyes, but gave no verbal reply.

Reid took it as a no. “Once I leave you can undress and get in. I’ll give you a whole half-hour before I bother you about your status, alright?”

Hotch nodded.

“And, after you’re done, there’s two pills and some ginger ale by your bed. Take them.” It came out as a firm order to which Hotch simply nodded again.

Satisfied that his friend was on board Reid turned his attention to ensuring the bath water was just warm enough to be comforting. Once he felt things were set he stood and smiled. “If you need anything just give a holler, okay?” There was another silent nod from Hotch.

Reid nodded back and headed out.

“Reid,” Hotch finally spoke, looking up at his exiting teammate. “Thank you.”

***

_"You can turn back on a person, but you can never turn your back on a drug, especially when it's waving a razor sharp hunting knife in your eye." ~ Hunter S. Thompson_


	3. Shaky Control

  
_Your friend is your needs answered. He is your field which you sow with love and reap with thanksgiving. And he is your board and your fireside. For you come to him with your hunger, and you seek him for peace. ~ Kahlil Gibran_

***

The water did wonders to ease the tension in Hotch’s body. It relaxed aching muscles and warmed his body enough to stop the shivering. Finally he was able to think some beyond his needs for the drugs. His first thoughts were of Reid, most were questions. Hotch could understand the basics of why; they were coworkers, team members, and friends, it’s perfectly logical Reid would want to help. The puzzles came with the underlying whys. Did Reid not fully grasp the risk he was taking? That, if Strauss and other higher ups were to find out about all this, they’d likely both be out of a job and, possibly, so would Morgan for not being more aware of those in his team.

Hotch sunk deeper into the water and decided not to go down the road of potential repercussions. Not just now while he was actually feeling like he could make it. This thought, that he could make it, did bring up another question of deep interest to the man...how did Reid make it through this? Had he had a friend to help him? Gideon had still been around, had he helped the then addicted young man? Or had Reid gone it alone? Hotch frowned at the thought. He’d barely been able to get up off the floor after not taking his Oxycontin for half a day and, well, he considered himself a pretty capable guy all around. Reid...Reid was a still a kid!

“Hotch?” Reid voice suddenly came through the door as he knocked lightly.

“Uh…” Hotch was shocked out of his thoughts and he sunk farther under in the water suddenly feeling rather exposed, even with walls and doors between the two men. “Yeah?”

“It’s been a half hour, I was just checking,” Reid smiled a little to himself as he heard splashes and guessed at Hotch’s movements to hide himself in the bath. To Reid it was terribly unnecessary; not only would Reid never simply barge in on anyone, but it wasn’t as if Reid hadn’t seen others in the nude before and, surely, Hotch didn’t have anything to be embarrassed about even with the scars left by Foyet. “You know you, uh, might want to get out soon. The water can’t be too warm anymore and it’s easier to fall asleep when your body’s warm as opposed to cold.”

“Yeah, alright, just gimme a bit,” Hotch replied, letting his general drowsiness effect his normally perfect pronunciation.

“Sure, just give a call if you need any help.” Reid then returned to his bed, sitting up to read over the files for their current case.

Hotch did not call for Reid. For him it was bad enough that he was found sick and shaking on the floor like some pathetic, broken, junkie. He’d survived an explosion, torture at the hands of Foyet, and numerous altercations with others; he could certainly get out of a tub on his own. It still took him almost all his reserved strength to lift himself out of the water and, rather quickly, his legs shook so that he had to sit at the edge of the tub to dry off. He slipped his boxers, sweatpants, and tee shirt back over moistened skin and soon the fabric clung to parts of him. If he were in better shape he’d have cared, but right now all his thoughts were on the pills and bed waiting for him on the other side of the door.

Reid looked up and smiled some as his friend stepped out. Hotch still looked something of a mess, but at least he was a clean mess. “Baths are nice, huh?”

Hotch gave a small smile. “Better than I remember,” he confessed as he held onto the doorframe. He wasn’t quite sure he could make it all the way to the bed yet. Rather than ask for help though the agent decided to try and go for it on his own. He just made it with a sigh that became a groan as he lay out over the bed on his stomach. He saw Reid was reviewing case files and thought for a moment how he should be doing the same, but with lids as heavy and weak as his he could barely keep his eyes open. He wouldn’t retain anything he read at the moment, not even close.

“You should make sure to take the meds before falling asleep,” Reid commented as he finally looked back down at the files. “If you don’t now you’ll be even sicker when you wake up.”

Hotch forced himself to sit up with another groan. “Sicker? Is that even possible?”

Reid gave a small laugh. “You’d be amazed. I could barely get out of bed on the second day.”

“That’s hardly encouraging,” Hotch said grimly, but with a hint of a smile, as he leaned over to take the two Oxycontin he was allowed with a large swallow of ginger ale. Then he decided to ask a question that had been swirling in his mind as he sat in the tub. “How did...” he didn’t quite know how to pose the question. “I mean when you went through this did you…”

“Do my detox alone?” Reid offered to finish. Hotch nodded. “Um...yes and no. The first few days Gideon helped me. He, uh, he took care of me when my withdrawal symptoms were at their worst, but by the third day I was mostly on my own aside from phone calls and a few visits from Gideon and, uh, Ethan.”

“Ethan?”

“My friend from New Orleans,” Reid clarified. “The one I was friends with in Vegas and, uh, first joined the academy with.”

“The one that dropped out?” Reid nodded. “So, he stopped by too? Or was that just Gideon?” Hotch asked, finishing his glass of soda and settling down some under the covers of the bed.

Reid smiled. “It was both of them. On separate occasions though, of course.” His smile grew almost cheeky before he started to gather and organize the files to place them on the small table in the room.

“So you and Ethan...” Hotch started, then stopped himself. It was a completely inappropriate question that he had no right to ask Reid no matter how intrigued he was.

“Goodnight, Hotch,” Reid said simply before going to turn off his side of the twin-bulb bedside lamp. He could guess at all the possible ways Hotch’s question could’ve ended and, while he wasn’t offended by any of them, there weren’t enough hours in this night to answer.

***

His body shook, muscles twitched painfully, almost spastically, as he awoke. His clothes stuck to him with sweat and he could feel dampness from the same bodily fluid beneath him. Hotch’s first thoughts were that his body was punishing him for his curiosity about his friend’s personal life just as his mother would when he was nosy as a boy.

“Reid?” he called out as he barely opened his eyes. Even that small movement made him uncomfortable and, as he tried to force himself to sit him, his head began to throb to the point of making him dizzy. “Reid?!” Pain and discomfort always had a way of making him more irritable than he should be.

Reid’s head popped out of the bathroom, half covered in shaving cream. “Are you trying to get me to slit my throat or something?” He could tolerate a lot of things, but being startled while shaving wasn’t one of them. He was something of a bleeder, always had been. It was probably what added to the bullies delight in beating the snot out of him as a child.

“You’re not going to slit your throat,” Hotch grumbled dismissively, finally working himself into a sitting position only to lean forward some, his elbows on his knees and head in his hands. He sighed. “Sorry, I’m just...a little on edge at the moment. I have a splitting headache and I...I can’t stop shaking.” He wasn’t going to confess the bed thing, though he was rather sure the pool of dampness on the sheets was obvious.

“Well, um, if you’d like you could stay in the room today? I could just tell the team you’ve been hit with the stomach flu.” It was an empty offer. Not that Reid wouldn’t do just that, he just knew Hotch would never let him. As long as the man was breathing, as long as his heart was still pumping, Hotch would still actively work to solve the case.

Hotch shook his head. “No, I’ll be fine.” He looked up at Reid. “But maybe I could have some more pills? Just for the day, to get my body and mind on the right track for the case.” It wasn’t asking too much, was it? Just enough to satisfy his body’s cravings for the day so he could focus and do his job.

Reid’s lips crooked to the side in a manner that indicated he was thinking before they spread into a thin smile. “Not a chance.”

Though Hotch would normally never actually expect Reid to go along with the plan he found himself greatly irritated that he wouldn’t right now. “Why not?”

“Why do you think,” Reid replied evenly before going back to the bathroom to finish shaving. He was a little shocked Hotch even asked, that he'd ask a question that made his addiction so obvious.

Hotch, on pure stubbornness and the adrenaline he got from arguing, got up and headed towards the bath. “Reid, I can barely stand without feeling like my head’s going to explode, my stomach’s constantly turning, and my hands, my body, won’t stop shaking.”

“You’re not getting any Oxycontin until I decide you need it,” Reid stated firmly.

“How am I supposed function on a case this way? I can’t! Certainly not to extent that’s needed.”

The junior agent finished washing his face then turned to Hotch leaning in the doorway. “Says the man who wanted to return to the field the day after his eardrum nearly got blown out.” He then took a breath. “I have Aspirin and Immodium AD and you can stick with the stomach bug thing and have ginger ale instead of coffee. It won’t be easy, but it’ll be manageable.”

“And the shaking?”

“Keep your hands busy or out of sight.” Reid shrugged. He really never had a good solution for that one himself, which was why he frequently stuffed his hands in his pockets during his withdrawal time.

Hotch stared at him a moment or two, then spoke once more. “And how am I supposed to shave, Reid?” He never went a day without shaving except when in the hospital; not shaving now would alert the whole team that something was wrong.

Reid frowned. That was a problem he hadn’t completely thought through. He himself could go a day or two without shaving with no one the wiser. Hotch, however, already had a clear 5 o’clock shadow. “Um...” he looked down in thought, then back up at Hotch with an answer. “I could do it.”

“What?”

“Shave you,” Reid bit his bottom lip nervously, not sure how he would take the offer. Hotcher was distinctly alpha male and shaving was a rather personal part of any man’s daily routine. Normally exactly two people were allowed to do it for a man - the person paid to, like a barber, and the man’s significant other. Reid was neither those things to Hotch.

Hotch’s eyes narrowed warily, then he shook his head. “No, forget it. I’ll do it myself.” 

He brushed past Reid and went to set up to shave with a firm determination. He’d already lowered himself into confessing he needed help with his Oxycontin use, he was not accepting any more help than was absolutely required. He could do this without help; he had every day since he was a teen. He washed his face, slathered the foam on, and went to take the razor. His hands began to shake, his fingers seize, and he fumbled causing the razor to slip from his hand into the sink. “Fuck!” His thumb began to bleed.

“Let me help,” Reid offered again, softly, as he moved in a little closer and went to pick the razor out of the sink, turning to Hotch as he did. “Please, Hotch.”

Hotch looked up from the sink, followed the razor as Reid took it, and then looked at Reid almost sadly. “Why?”

“Why what?”

“Why are you doing all this for me?”

Reid gave a faint smile. “Because I, uh, I’d like to think you’d do the same for me.”

“But I didn’t,” Hotch pointed out. “I knew you were suffering, I knew that you needed help, and I never did anything.” Gideon had and, apparently, so had Reid’s friend, Ethan, but Hotch never did.

“You had your own troubles then, Hotch.” Like the continuing dissolution of his marriage. “You would have if you didn’t.”

“I’m glad one of us thinks so.”

Reid's lips curled into a faint smile. “I don’t just think, I know.” He glanced down at the man’s hands. “How’s your finger?"

“It’s fine,” Hotch brushed the cut off; grabbing some toilet paper to wrap it in. Honestly it was probably the least pained part of him. “So, um, have you done this before?” he asked, pointing to the razor in Reid’s hand.

“Shave someone?” Reid smiled with a hint of smugness. “Sure, shave myself all the time.”

“I meant for someone else.”

“I know,” Reid confessed before nodding. “And yes, once or twice, so rest assured I know what I’m doing.”

Hotch’s curiosity, again, got the better of him. “Whom?”

“Huh?” Reid feigned confusion.

“Whom did you shave?”

Reid smiled just as he had the night before. “We should get this done, Hotch, we don’t want to be late.”

“Yes, of course,” Hotch agreed with a nod, deciding to drop the topic as he internally scolded himself once more. It was strange, he wasn’t the prying type generally, and he hated when others where with him, but Reid never seemed such an enigma. Reid was the one he felt was easiest to understand – young genius who lacked social skills due to his advanced intelligence and closeted form of raising with slight daddy-issues resulting from his father abandoning him at an early age. Reid was not the one who had secrets, who learned life lessons and had experiences that Hotch hadn’t. Dr Spencer Reid was always and forever to be the boy genius; yet this wasn’t the Reid he’d seen the past few days.

“Um...it would probably be easiest if we grabbed a chair from the main room and brought it in here. Then you can sit down and relax some while I, uh, shave.” Reid was already onto putting the plans to action, leaving the razor at the sink to get the chair and Hotch to wrap his head around things. 

At the moment keeping Hotch curious, even a little confused, gave Reid the slightest bit of amusement, after all it wasn’t often others on the team were puzzled by him unless it was either because he didn’t know something pop-culture related or did know something they considered obscure.

Hotch stayed in the bathroom and removed the wrapping on his thumb to examine his cut, which he was pleased to find already stopped bleeding. As Reid returned he stood aside to let the chair get set up in front of the sink, but didn’t sit until Reid patted the back of the chair. Even then he did it a little hesitantly. “This is...strange.”

“You’ve never gone to a barber to get a shave?” Reid asked curiously as he started the water in the sink to rinse the razor. He knew it wasn’t the same thing even if Hotch had, but he wanted to keep this as nonchalant as possible to keep his friend at ease.

“No.”

“Never had a girl give you a shave?” Reid didn’t want to say wife or Haley; he didn’t want to bring up anything remotely upsetting at the moment.

“But you’re not a girl,” Hotch pointed out with a tiny smile starting to relax a little.

Reid chuckled and continued to joke. “I’m pretty sure most the kids in my high school would’ve disagreed with you on that.” Hotch’s lips curled briefly in another smile, but he didn’t laugh. “Now just relax and...trust me.” A tall order from a man like Hotch no matter who was speaking, but the more he trusted Reid the better this would go.

Hotch gave a small nod then closed his eyes. It was easier to relax and forget about any potential awkwardness of the moment if he closed his eyes. 

He felt thin, delicate, fingers on his face, stretching his skin just a touch, before the faint sensation of the razor appeared up by his left sideburn. The movements of the blade were short, quick, and with just a hint of pressure, but surprisingly gentle and accurate. As the fingers moved to stretch other patches of skin so they could be shaved the man began to truly relax and forget who was shaving him. Even when he heard Reid’s voice ask him to move his head this way and that Hotch didn’t think, just obeyed. As the old cliché went, he was putty in the other man’s hands at the moment.

“Tilt your head back some,” Reid requested softly, setting three of his fingers just under Hotch’s chin and applying faint, encouraging, pressure as he did. 

He was surprised when not only did Hotch obey, exposing the underside of his chin and neck, but with an exhale of air that could almost be construed as a moan. Though the noise certainly caught his attention, made him wonder some at its cause, Reid didn’t pause what he was doing for a moment. If he paused it might break the spell, might bring the verbal display to its maker’s attention, and he didn’t want Hotch to feel embarrassed or anything. So he continued without break until his task was complete.

Even when Hotch could sense that his shave was over he did not open his eyes. He didn't want to face the stress of the job, the threat of an UNSUB, the loss of a victim, or the pain that accompanied his movements these past two days. All Hotch wanted was to stay as relaxed as he’d been while he was getting shaved, but that was not meant to be as he heard Reid mention a towel to wipe off his face with. Hotch opened his eyes to see the damp cloth before him. “Thank you,” he replied simply as he took the cloth and began to clean his face with it.

“I, uh...I can get your suit if you like,” Reid offered. “You could get dressed in here and I’ll get dressed out in the room.”

“That would be great, Reid, thank you,” Hotch replied. He stood up and exchanged his damp cloth for a dry one before examining his now smooth, clean, face into the mirror. He gave a small smile at his reflection, at the shave, and in admiration of the skill Reid clearly had. It naturally brought up the curiosity of how, exactly, Reid gained this skill, but it was just as quickly dismissed for the moment. His normal, professional, stern face appeared and he turned to Reid. “You did a very good job, thank you.”

Reid saw the smile. He also saw the change in Hotch’s expression and demeanor and knew Hotch was feeling more like himself. The man was once again feeling more together, more in control, and more in charge. It made Reid smiled privately, happy to see Hotch a bit more like his old self and happy that he’d helped make it happen.

***

_A true friend knows your weaknesses but shows you your strengths; feels your fears but fortifies your faith; sees your anxieties but frees your spirit; recognizes your disabilities but emphasizes your possibilities. ~ William Arthur Ward_   



	4. The Reality of Escape

  
_There is a bend in the reality that you see and the reality that really exists and the amount of bend is directly proportional to our sufferings. ~ Dhawal Kaul_

***

Hotch’s return to his old self only lasted a few hours; then his nice, clean-shaven, face turned back to sickly pale and he had to make more than a few trips to the lavatory to let the newest waves of sickness come and go throughout his body. With every visit, every lost piece of conversation, Hotch began to prefer more and more the fantasy his addiction had provided him – that he was “fine”, “okay”, and "in control". The lies were better than the reality at the moment.

After the morning review and briefing Morgan went to spilt the team. He decided to keep Hotch at the station considering his seemingly poor health and Reid offered to stay with him under the guise that he’d like to take a closer look at a possible pattern in the dates of the murders. Not an outright lie, Reid was sure there was a pattern to be found, but he also didn’t feel comfortable leaving Hotch on his own on any level yet. 

“Hey, Reid, can I talk to you a second?” Morgan asked as the others began to head out in pairs.

“Uh, sure,” Reid replied, glancing at Hotch a moment before getting up to follow Morgan out of the room.

“Okay, what is going on with Hotch?” Morgan asked bluntly the moment he imagined they were out of earshot.

Reid shrugged. “I'm pretty sure he has the stomach flu.”

Morgan gave a smile that indicated he wasn’t buying the story. “Come on, man, tell me the truth, what’s going on with him? He hasn’t been right since Foyet.”

“Yeah, well, how would you be?” Reid snapped the question off like a shot. “Not everyone bounces back from things, Morgan, and it doesn’t help any when those who’re supposed to support you start talking about you behind your back.”

“Reid, I...” Morgan suddenly felt like an asshole even for asking. “Look, I’m just worried about him, that’s all.”

Reid hated to lie and play on the guilt he knew Morgan felt about first questioning Hotch’s behavior nearly throughout Foyet’s existence and then having to replace Hotch as team leader, but sometimes it had to be done. You had to throw one friend under the proverbial bus a little in order to save another. 

He debated Morgan’s sincerity, before nodding and giving a smile. “We all are, Morgan, but really it...It’s just the stomach flu." He shrugged. "There’s not that much that can be done except let Hotch wade it out, you know?”

“Well, I could send him back to the hotel.”

“You really think he’d go?” Reid couldn’t help but smirk.

Morgan had to let out a laugh. No, he didn’t think Hotch would, he knew Hotch would fight all of them tooth-and-nail to stay. “Just keep an eye on him, will ya? Just in case.”

“Sure thing,” Reid said, still smiling, before heading back to Hotch.

“He’s suspicious, isn’t he?” Hotch croaked out when Reid reentered the room.

Reid closed the door and went to the whiteboard to reexamine the dates of the murders. “Not of the problem, just that there is one.”

“What did you say?”

“That you had the stomach flu.” Reid replied simply before looking over at Hotch and giving a sigh at the state of the man. “He thought of sending you home.”

“No!” Hotch stated with all the firmness he could manage.

Reid chuckled softly. “That’s what we figured in the end.”

***

As the hours ticked past Hotch’s health and comfort declined. It became so that he could barely keep his eyes open as an almost painful exhaustion seemed to overtake him. His hands wouldn’t stop shaking, his stomach cramped every so often, and all he could think of was how much easier this would all be if he had just one more pill right now. He didn’t want a lot, didn’t want to take the same amounts he had in the past, just one to help him focus and actually be able to do his job. Just enough to cloud those memories from the days of The Reaper; from the reality of all the loss and pain.

He began to watch Reid some, trying to figure out where the little sneak could’ve hidden the pill bottle. **His** pill bottle. Screw the memorandum on inter-office profiling; this was a matter of importance. Without his body and mind being at their highest levels of functioning Hotch was never going to be an effective agent, he was never going to be able to help the team catch this UNSUB and save lives.

Hotch quickly discounted Reid leaving the pills in the hotel because the young man would want to make sure he maintained control of them at all times. He also ruled out pants or jacket pockets since Reid wouldn’t want to carry them on his person, especially in worry that someone else on the team would find them. That just left...Hotch’s eyes moved slowly to Reid’s messenger bag and his lips curled into a slightly devious smile. He cleared his throat roughly, loudly, to catch Reid’s attention.

“Do you need something?” Reid asked as he turned from his latest attempt at revealing a pattern he just knew was there.

Hotch looked up at him, then down as if embarrassed, before sighing some. “I, um, was thinking I’d go get some more ginger ale.”

“Oh…uh…okay,” Reid gave a slightly confused look at why Hotch would announce that.

“I don’t know where the vending machine is.”

“Oh right!” Reid suddenly felt he got it, Hotch didn’t want to admit he wasn’t quite up to searching for it himself. “Okay, um, I’ll get some sodas for the both of us. You just, uh, stay here. Hey, maybe you can see if you can find the pattern in the murder dates? I’ve been trying to figure it out almost all day and my eyes are actually starting to hurt. Maybe it just needs a fresh set of...eyes,” Reid suggested with a smile as he began to leave the room. He wanted to help make Hotch feel like he was still a part of this case, that he could still be a valuable part in solving it, even in the state he was in.

“Sure,” Hotch replied with a weak smile. He watched Reid head out the room and down the hall before he got up himself. While he briefly considered just taking the whole bag he knew that would raise far too many flags too fast. So, instead, he simply patted the bag down quickly until he felt a bulge and found the small, inside, zip-up pocket where the bottle was tucked away. He decided it was better to leave the station and return to the hotel room to ensure privacy while taking the medicine so stepped out to find the lead detective they’d been working with and told him to please tell Reid he was returning to the hotel room due to increasing illness. Hotch left assuming that this last lie would work as well as the one he’d told to get Reid out of the room in the first place.

***

Reid didn’t even have to check his bag to know Hotch took the pills, it’d be the only reason he’d return to the hotel early. To get high. He was annoyed, agitated, and, yes, a little disappointed in Hotch, but more than anything Reid was determined. Determined not to let Hotch ruin all the work that’d already been done, determined not to let Hotch fail his team, his friends, his son, and himself. Reid knew that many people had relapses, it was just a reality of addiction, but he also knew what it meant to relapse. The shame that came with it.

Claiming concern for his friend and, with one of the free officers to drive him back to the hotel, Reid reached it about twenty minutes after he guessed Hotch, driving in the state he’d been, would've arrived. Plenty of time to pop those pills and slip back into his addiction. Reid silently cursed the people blocking his way as they came out the front entrance, he silently cursed the elevator that went too slow, and he silently cursed that he didn’t have another option with their room being on the fourteenth floor. He openly, audibly, cursed when he finally got to the door only to find its progress, his progress, stopped by the top lock. 

“Hotch, open up!” he called out, but got no reply. Now, no matter how much he might’ve wanted to, Reid knew enough to realize breaking down the door was neither wise nor possible for him. So he found his own way to get the door open.

He removed his handcuffs from his back pocket and opened one cuff in order to make a sort of hook, which he carefully threaded through the space between the door and doorway to hook onto the top lock. Thanks to thin, dexterous, fingers and some kind of miracle Reid would never be able to explain it actually worked and he was able to get the lock unhooked. He entered and dropped his bag to the floor.

Hotch lay out on the bed completely unconscious, the pill bottle on the bedside table.

“Hotch?” Reid asked in a normal volume, but with firmness he rarely had except when it was of the utmost importance. This was. This was a friend’s welfare. No, actually, it was more than that even. It was the welfare of a friend’s job and family. “Hotch!” he raised his voice as he moved closer.

Hotch still didn’t respond, though the slow rising and falling of his chest did indicate that he was still breathing so Reid felt a little better. At least he didn’t have a medial emergency on his hands. No, Hotch was just lost for the moment. Lost in the world the Oxycontin helped him to create, one that was far better than the reality that a clean, sober, waking life had to offer these days.

He let Hotch sleep as he collected the pill bottle and began to prepare the room some for another attempt at detox. Though this time Reid was not going to let failure be an option. No one was going to get in the way of him helping Hotch, not even Hotch. He closed the curtains and reset the top lock of the door before grabbing his cell phone out and making the call. 

“Hi, Morgan? Hey, yeah, it’s Reid...look, uh...Hotch started to get really sick so I, uh...I brought him back to the hotel.” Morgan asked if it was serious. If there was anything he or the team could do. “I don’t think so, but I’m going to stay with him tomorrow.”

Morgan hesitated, asked why.

“Because otherwise he’ll show up and possibly infect the rest of the team. I have all the files and everything so, uh, I’ll just work from here.”

Morgan agreed to most, except the part where Reid stayed behind as well.

“Well, uh, I wouldn’t want to infect anyone either. The odds are, with the type of bug I’m guessing Hotch has, I’m already a carrier and the way these diseases works are that, once they find a host, they stay dormant for a period before the symptoms begin to show and...” He made like he was going to start a long, in-depth, rant and, just like he suspected, Morgan cut him off with a full concession. 

Yes, Hotch should stay in the room. Yes, Reid should stay inside and simply work from the hotel room. Yes to whatever would get the rant to stop.

The reality was Hotch had a sickness that Reid knew none of the others could possibly understand. Even while Gideon helped him, the man never understood. Ethan had. Ethan knew the reality of addiction before Reid did, he’d helped teach it to Reid in a number of ways. Now it was time for Reid to teach it to Hotch.

***

_"Those who run away from the reality will eventually get run over by it!" ~ Mehmet Ildan_   



	5. Ill Judgment

  
_Judge a man by his questions rather than by his answers ~ Voltaire_

***

Hotch woke slowly with a series of groans as his limbs felt like sacks weighing his whole body down. The relapse that allowed him to sleep so well, so deeply, was now keeping him from fully waking. It took all his strength to lift his lids up and eyes over to the clock. It was 10:45AM.

“Jesus,” Hotch muttered as he sat up slow; his head seeming to threaten to explode. “We’re late.”

“Actually we aren’t,” Reid commented smoothly as he sat on his bed surrounded by files.

“Excuse me?”

Reid looked over at the mess of a man Hotch was and sighed, looking back down at the case-file currently in his lap. “I told Morgan you weren’t feeling well and would be staying here.”

“You had no right to do that!” It was pure anger that got Hotch to his feet. Who was Reid to make those kinds of decisions? He was still Hotch’s subordinate.

“Would you rather I have told him you relapsed?” Reid looked up at Hotch’s glaring face unafraid. This wasn’t Hotch, not really, it was a mixture of his pride and the drugs. “Explain to him how you became an addict and that this is all part of the process?”

For the briefest moment Hotch thought of hitting Reid. Not hard, nothing to cause severe damage, just a pop in the mouth to express his anger and get the younger agent to shut up. He decided to stick with a verbal argument for the moment though. “You know, if I wanted to, I could just leave.”

“Sure,” Reid concurred before adding. “But not to go to the team. They all think you have the stomach flu, they aren’t going to want to be around you.”

“But you do?”

“I wanna help you.”

“Is that all you want?” Hotch raised a suspicious brow. He couldn’t explain why, couldn’t possibly understand how the drive for the drugs was making him think such a thing, but Hotch got a suddenly strange feeling helping wasn’t Reid’s main goal.

Reid wasn’t surprised at the question, some people grew paranoid with drug abuse, but he was surprised Hotch had actually gone ahead and asked it. He smiled a little awkwardly. “You’re, uh…you’re not exactly my type, Hotch.”

“Oh, so you do like women?” Hotch found the words coming without control, flying forth like he wanted his fists to just moments before.

Reid couldn’t help but to laugh a touch. “I like who I like, the gender is rather irrelevant,” he confessed matter-of-factly.

Something about the easy honesty of Reid’s reply caused a wave of weakness to wash over Hotch just before a wave of nausea caused by the drugs did the same. It beat out the anger and he was forced to sit on the bed, hunched over with his head in his hands as he contemplated if the feeling would pass on its own or he needed to run to the lavatory. A jolt ran from his stomach up his throat and he was in the bathroom, kicking the door shut, just in time.

***

Reid remained seated on the bed, looking over files, as Hotch emptied his stomach contents. He only looked up when he heard the bathroom door open slowly, hesitantly.

“Feel better?”

“Not even close,” Hotch confessed. He was unsure if he really wanted to leave the safety of the toilet yet, but felt the need to apologize. “Reid?”

“Hm?”

“I’m sorry for...prying before.”

“It’s fine Hotch.”

“No, it’s not,” he stated firmly. “I have no right to discuss, or even ask about, your private life.”

The younger man slowly smiled. “Well, it’s not exactly a new experience for me, Hotch. I mean I’m not married and I’m not like Morgan so...” he shrugged. The conclusion of the thought was obvious; people assumed he was a homosexual. It stopped bothering him by the end of his teens.

Since Reid seemed neither overly hurt or cross with him and his stomach was now cooperative Hotch stepped out of the bathroom. He headed towards his bed. “But you...” he wanted to word this carefully, as carefully as he stepped in his weakened state. “You know that, no matter what, I...I wouldn’t...judge you.”

“Judge me?”

“Based on...who you...”

“Are attracted to?" Reid offered to finish what was clearly an awkward sentence for Hotch to get out. He smiled softly. “I know, Hotch.” His superior might’ve been a straight up Alpha male, but he wasn’t the type to discriminate against others based on things like that.

Despite wanting to sit up and appear completely together as always Hotch found himself lying on his side on his hotel bed. “So...I’m really not your type?” he blurted out without fully thinking. While he’d intended it to be a joke of sorts he immediately regretted saying anything at all because he knew he really wanted to know. He really wasn’t Reid’s type? 

Not that he thought he should be or anything of that sort; Hotch never considered himself “a catch” on any level to anyone, heck he considered himself unimaginably lucky to have gotten Haley. It was simply that he always pictured, male or female, Reid would be attracted to more dominant types. Those older, more firmly in charge, and could play a “Mommy/Daddy” role. Hotch imagined that was a type he’d fit into in Reid’s eyes. Was that not the case? Was that not who Reid was attracted to? If so then who was Reid’s type? The curiosity lingered in his mind from the moment Reid had commented that he, Hotch, wasn’t the younger man’s type, but had intentionally been vague on his orientation.

“Excuse me?” This question threw Reid wildly off-kilter. This wasn’t Hotch trying to antagonize, profile, or belittle him like before. And though the tone was as a joke, a gentle, light-hearted, tease, Reid got the sense there was a genuineness behind the question.

“Nothing, never mind,” Hotch mumbled quickly. He had already pried far too much in the past day or two and it wasn’t his business. Reid’s private life was none of his business. “Perhaps we should...” he cleared his throat. His face twisted in disgust as he wished he’d rinsed out his mouth better. “We should work on the profile some.” Get off the topic of one another’s personal life despite a strange urge that grew inside him to know more about his teammate.

Reid let the drastic change in topic slide. “Are you sure you’re up to it?” Reid asked in genuine concern.

Hotch gave the firmest look he could muster. “If I don’t focus on the case I’ll end up focusing on how I feel and that’s about the last thing I want to focus on right now.”

“Very well.” 

The next few hours the two worked on the profile the best they could. Reid made calls to the team and Hotch took occasional breaks when his stomach rebelled against him once more. It wasn’t an ideal way of working a case, but Hotch found he was able to get more done in the hotel with just Reid than he’d been able to while out if the field with the team dealing with his withdrawals.

It wasn’t until Reid noticed Hotch’s eyes were fighting to stay open that he looked at the clock. He smiled as he set the coroner’s reports to the side. “I think we should take a break.”

“We...” As if the suggestion itself triggered it, Hotch covered his mouth to fight an oncoming yawn. “We can’t take a break, Reid, we have what? A day, two at the most, before the UNSUB starts hunting another victim. We...” and another. “Need to get ahead of this guy.”

“The whole team is still working on this too,” Reid reminded gently. “And, uh, we’ve actually done a lot considering. I think it’d be better if you, well, um…rested for a bit. Maybe slept some?” He really didn’t want to say the word he was thinking.

But Hotch knew it. “Nap?” He gave a derisive snort. What did Reid take him for? A toddler? “I don’t nap, Reid.” He was a full-grown man, not a boy Jack’s age.

“Just like you don’t take baths?” Reid asked with a faint smirk, referring to the night before. “You know, this is why you’re not my type.” At this point Reid was just bringing up the topic to keep Hotch from trying to go back to work. Maybe wear him down more before suggesting he get some sleep once again. Rather like reading a story to a child before bedtime.

Hotch smiled despite himself. “Because I don’t take naps?”

“No, because you judge too quickly.” Reid watched Hotch’s smile fade and his face grow not just weary, but putout. “Not about people or anything but, uh...about...things.”

“Things?”

Reid didn’t answer right away as he thought how to put into words what he meant. He shifted to sit at the edge his bed on the side closest to Hotch. “Well...and this doesn’t count as profiling,” he clarified before continuing. “You’ve always struck me as the type that has a very set way of doing things and that deviating from them would be virtually unthinkable. I just...” he shrugged and smiled sheepishly. “Find that very boring.”

“You find me boring?”

“No.”

Hotch's smile matched Reid's. “Just how I do things?”

“It’s not a judgment, Hotch, it’s a matter of preference. I prefer to allow for a flow in my private life and in being around those who do the same when I socialize outside the office. I, uh...don’t think you do.”

“You think I’m rigid?”

Reid’s lips puckered and ticked to the side of his mouth before he confessed. “This is not coming out the way I intended.” 

Though Hotch wasn’t too far off. Reid imagined that when healthy and of sound mind Hotch to be the type that set out his clothes ahead of time, had the same morning and nighttime ritual, and even made love the same way. He was sure it wasn’t a problem for Hotch, that he found solace in a sense of predictability that couldn’t exist in their chaotic career. 

Reid was just different. He liked a little randomness and gentle chaos in his life. He enjoyed that his home was cluttered with books, his friends called at random, and he made his outfit up for the day as he dug through his go-bag. The reason he loved Halloween was for its unpredictable nature; normal rules no longer applied and it was a playful free-for-all. These were not things that a man like Hotch would seem to enjoy, let alone appreciate, in Reid's opinion.

“I’m being too sensitive,” Hotch worried aloud as he looked down.

Reid found an entry point back to what he really wanted to discuss, the true task at hand, and gave a sympathetic sigh. “You’re just drained, Hotch. Withdrawals wear you out far more rapidly than normal and, if you run down your body on top of that, the withdrawals will only be worse.”

“Is this your way of trying to convince me to nap?” Hotch was exhausted, not slow-witted.

“Something like that,” Reid smiled a touch. “Look, I’ll give you a pill and you can get some sleep or just lay there, but either way we’re stopping for now.”

“What will you do?”

“I’ll likely continue to work,“ Reid confessed with a small smile.

“If you’re working than I am.” Hotch insisted before going to stifle yet another yawn. “And don’t even bother arguing because I won’t be able to rest knowing you’re in the room working alone.” Then he looked Reid right in the eye despite the decreasing ability to even keep his lids open all the way. “You should know that.”

“Then I guess I’ll just take a break too,” Reid countered, his smile still on his face. He was wiling to at least until Hotch was asleep or otherwise unaware of what Reid was or wasn’t doing.

“But will you nap?” Hotch joked.

Reid faked an indignant look. “Nap?” He let out a jokingly over-the-top snort. “I don’t nap, Hotch.”

The two men shared a chuckle.

***

_"Do not condemn the judgment of another because it differs from your own. You may both be wrong." ~ Dandemis_   



	6. The Memorial Nightmare

  
_Who's to say that dreams and nightmares aren't as real as the here and now? ~ John Lennon_

***

Like expected Hotch drifted off to sleep rather quickly once he allowed himself to lie down and relax and, once he did, Reid returned to work almost immediately. He wasn’t sure how deep of a sleeper Hotch was so decided to make all calls to the team in the bathroom with the door shut so as to not disturb the other man. It was coming out after one of these calls that he noticed Hotch was in some sort of distress.

The drugs usually kept the memories at bay. They numbed Hotch’s mind while he slept so that, even when he threatened to dream, it was in vague wisps he barely understood and never remembered, yet his one pill had not been enough. One pill stopped the pain and shaking enough for him to sleep, but with this sleep came horrors. Flashes of everything that he couldn’t stop.

Reid carefully moved closer as he watched the other man mumble, whimper, and seem to shake his head no. Hotch’s muscles grew so tense in a fight-or-flight response that they actually twitched under his white suit-shirt.

_…The knife, the searing pain... “Shh...don’t speak...I don’t wanna brag...I’m something of an expert...”_

Perspiration caused Hotch’s face to shine in the light that crept over his bed from the crack between closed curtains. His breathing slowed, then grew rapid before slowing again enough that, for a moment, Reid thought it stopped.

_...That sticky combination of sweat and blood. “Try to relax...it goes in so much easier if you relax…” That hot breath on his face from a cooing monster..._

Hotch turned on his side suddenly, as if trying not to look at something or someone. Then he flipped to the other just as suddenly and buried his face in a pillow. Reid knew what it was.

_“...stabbing is a substitution for the act of sex...if somebody’s impotent they’ll use a knife instead...” That face. “Is that what you think, Agent Hotchner?”_

The nightmares had come to Hotch just as they had to Reid as he went through recovery all those years ago. Reid frowned in the knowledge that, from now on and for some time, they would only get worse.

_…That weight on his body was smothering, it was too much to breath, to bear. “Maybe this will change the way you profile...”_

Hotch’s body curled up into a ball as he instinctually clutched his side in his sleep. Reid wanted to wake him, but knew how disorienting and upsetting it could be for someone to be pulled suddenly and without warning from a nightmare like Hotch was having. As Hotch began to choke on sobs hard enough that Reid worried he would make himself sick though Spencer rushed to his side prepared to wake him if necessary.

_…Everything that Hotch could not control..._

“NO!!” Hotch shot up and pushed, with all his might, the figure hovering over him. A figure that gave a yelp as it toppled over and onto the floor. He was soaked in sweat with eyes burning from tears that’d not yet been allowed to fall while he slept. They fell now though, streamed out his eyes and down his face as readily and continuously as they had the day he'd said goodbye to Haley and Jack. He shook his head as remnants of fear and remembered pain from the dream clung to him, refusing to release their hold even as Hotch began to come back to reality.

“Hotch?” Reid’s voice came hesitantly from the floor between the two beds.

It had not been Foyet that Hotch had shoved roughly away; it’d been poor Reid. Reid who, out of concern, had decided to make sure his friend remained safe even as the Hotch’s mind tormented him with memories. Reid who, for all his concern, was met with a force that knocked him backwards onto the floor, his head barely missing one of the bed frames in the fall. 

“Reid?” Hotch asked despite knowing the answer, letting it kick-start his mind to ask the question he really wanted to. “Reid, are you alright?”

Reid gave a groan as he made the effort to sit up. Hotch might’ve kicked like a 9-year-old girl, but he heaved another person like a full-grown man. Still, there was no reason to make Hotch feel bad about an accident. “I’m fine,” he grabbed onto his bed and lifted himself up, the wind finally returning to his lungs.

“I didn’t mean to,” Hotch insisted worriedly. “I just...I was...” he wanted to explain, but couldn’t. 

He didn’t want to admit to the nightmare, that even the memories of The Reaper could bring him to tears, because it wasn’t just the loss of his family that affected him. It was that fear, that sense of complete helplessness and being at the mercy of a madman. It was that feeling that lingered still and caused the shaking of his hands to no longer just be a sign of withdrawals, but of slight panic as well. He’d shown only defiance in the face of Foyet, but deep down he’d been just short of terrified once he knew, really knew, that the sociopath had gained the upper hand. It was this fact, this emotion, that his mind had run with while he slept.

“I know,” Reid said simply as he moved to sit on the edge of the bed designated his and look over at Hotch. “I had them too.”

“And did you wake up like this?” A pathetic, weeping, mess that was scared of his own shadow.

“More often than not.” In his own nightmares Henkel was a monster, never the poor, broken, person Reid saw him as in waking life. “It’s normal, Hotch, nothing to...you know...be ashamed of.”

Hotch rubbed his face some, trying to rid himself of the evidence of his feelings. Though all the rubbing in the world couldn’t fix a puffy face, shaky hands, and sickly stomach. 

“I need to use the lavatory,” he mumbled, choosing to ignore the comment, as he slowly worked his way to the end of the bed. Like the dream, he hoped to shake the whole topic off.

“Sure, okay.” Reid didn’t bother offering help, he knew Hotch would refuse. He’d want privacy; he’d want people to stay away as he recovered from the nightmare. “Just, uh...” Reid watched Hotch delicately rise to his feet, appeared as unsure of his footing as a child learning to walk. “Give a holler if you need anything.”

Hotch didn’t reply, putting all his focus into moving towards the bathroom without stumbling, falling, or throwing up. Once inside, he shut the door behind him. The first thing Aaron did was throw up.

***

_"Reality is never as bad as a nightmare, as the mental tortures we inflict on ourselves." ~ Sammy Davis, Jr._   



	7. Painfully Numb

  
_Depression is merely anger without enthusiasm. ~ Steven Wright_

***

Reid warred with himself as he continued to listen to the shower running. It was going on an hour and while he heard nothing to indicate Hotch was in need of help he also heard...nothing. Nothing but running water, which even in the best hotels would’ve run freezing by now. He didn’t want to walk in on Hotch, certainly not while he might be showering, but Reid was growing worried. Having already knocked on the door twice Reid called out the name of his friend, his coworker, yet again. Nothing. Then he took a deep breath and announced. “I’m coming in!” as he slowly opened the door.

The shower had seemed a good idea, but Hotch had neither the physical nor emotional strength to remain standing for more than a few minutes. Then he slid down the wall opposite the water stream, tucked his knees up, and just sat as tears flowed out his eyes once more. Tears for Haley, for his son, for Gideon and Elle and Kate and everyone else he’d failed over the years. It didn’t take long for his guilt and remorse to become anger. 

Hotch lashed out as he did as a boy, taking his fist and slamming it into tile over and over until blood mixed into the water running down the drain. He focused on that, on the pain in his hand, until he felt nothing. Being numb kept the memories, the nightmares, the horrors, at bay at the moment.

“Hotch?” Reid called out tentatively as he peeked around the door towards the shower. Through the opening between the shower curtain and the wall he saw Hotch’s nude, balled-up, form in the corner of the tub. He saw the diluted blood on wall. 

While he’d always expected, eventually, for the depression associated with withdrawals to come he never expected this. For it to hit so fast, hard, and leave Hotch so wrecked. The image even left Reid aghast, wide-mouthed. 

“...Aaron?” maybe the first name usage would elicit a response? He certainly wasn’t about to move any closer yet with Hotch’s current non-responsive state, a state that suggested to Reid a potential for snapping if intruded on without great care.

“Go away.” Hotch’s response was soft, dull, and muffled with his head down, tucked into the arms folded over his knees.

Reid blinked a moment in silence, then closed his mouth and went to the other end of the shower to turn off the faucet. “You can’t stay in the shower.” He went to grab a dry towel off the rack before returning to Hotch to hand the towel over. “Can you get up?” Suddenly Reid really wished he had at least 10 pounds more of muscle than he actually had just in case the answer wasn’t what he hoped.

Hotch’s head lifted slowly when the water stopped and he moved to wipe his face clear of any remaining tears. At the question about standing he looked around as if confused by how he’d even gotten where he was. He took the towel, rubbed his face over it, and then laid it over him like a blanket. 

“I think so,” he answered finally. It was in acknowledging what was happening that suddenly caused his muscles to ache, stomach to cramp, and head to throb once more. Now, added to those pains, was his hand as well. Despite all that though Hotch was determined, now that Reid was there, watching, not to show any more weakness. To pretend that what had happened to get him curled up naked in the bottom of a hotel shower never happened at all. He shifted to wrap the towel around his waist, forcing his bleeding hand to hold it closed, and braced his good hand against the wall to leverage himself into a standing position.

There was a time, right after he’d shot Henkel, that Reid felt strong arms help him to his feet. Hotch’s arms. Now, years later, the roles were drastically reversed as Reid stepped forward into the shower to take hold of Hotch and help him stand.

“I’m fine.” Hotch said with a voice that shook as much as the rest of him.

“Let me help,” Spencer countered. “Please.” If he didn’t the odds of Hotch going down were pretty high. A slight shift and Reid had tucked himself under Hotch’s arm to shoulder the weight the best he could as they headed out of the bathroom.

It wasn’t until he was deposited on the hotel bed that Hotch realized he was still clinging to a towel, now damp and red with blood from his hand, and under said towel, he was naked. “I need clothes,” was all he could get out as he looked dully at his hand clenching the reddened fabric that kept his body from being completely exposed. He was exhausted and that emotional numbness was slowly returning.

“I’ll get you some, don’t worry,” Reid assured as he rolled his sleeves up to the elbows and went into the drawers where, neatly organized, were Hotch’s clothes. He grabbed a pair of boxer-briefs first then selected a tee shirt and sweat pants. He headed back over to Hotch with the clothes before frowning some at the bloodstain slowly spreading across the white hotel towel around the man’s waist. 

“Hotch,” Spencer waited until he looked up. “Put these on and I’ll get some things to help with your hand.” 

Hotch nodded in acknowledgment and Reid left the clothes at the corner of the bed beside Hotch. He went to the other end of the room to search in his go-bag for the first aid kit he always packed. Reid listened carefully to the rustle of fabric as Hotch began to change.

Normally Reid would’ve given him more privacy, would’ve went to clean up the bathroom, but not now. Not with Hotch in this semi-catatonic state. It was unwise, dangerous, to leave someone to their own devices when they were in recovery like this...when their own devices could include hurting themselves. And hadn’t Hotch already done that? After all his hand did not bash itself against a wall until it bled.

Thankfully Hotch, someone Reid expected to banish one of them to the lavatory while he changed, said nothing. He let go of the towel to slip on the underwear and sweats in his good hand, standing to ensure they were on straight. He pulled the towel out from under him as he sat back down and wrapped it around his wounded hand with a slight hiss. He looked over at the shirt that awaited him, but only gave a sigh. 

A minute later he put his thoughts into words . “Even if I get the shirt on I’ll get blood all over it.” That was hardly an acceptable way to wear a shirt.

“Oh…uh…” Reid wasn’t sure what to say, because he wasn’t sure if Hotch already had a plan or not, but he took the words as a signal that it was okay to turn back around towards his friend. He saw Aaron as he sat on the edge of the bed, scarred chest bared without any attempts at hiding, staring at the bloody towel wrapped around his hand. Reid knew, for once, Hotch wasn’t taking the lead. Hotch didn’t have a plan or tactic, he didn’t have a way to deal with the current situation, and he wasn’t going to be the one in charge. “How about I fix up your hand first then?” Reid offered as he headed over with the first aid kit.

Hotch nodded, but never looked away from his wrapped hand. Not until Reid was standing over him anyway, then he looked up almost questioningly.

“Can I see your hand?”

“Mm,” was the only reply Hotch gave before going to carefully unwrap the towel, wincing some when a shot of pain ran up his arm as he pulled away the last bit of towel that was stuck to his skin.

Reid moved the shirt back some so he could sit on the corner next to Hotch before taking the busted hand in his, an act that caused Hotch to wince once again. “Can you move it?”

Hotch wiggled his fingers in answer.

“Well, it’s probably not broken then,” Reid smiled a little, but got only a blank stare in reply. “We could go to the hospital to be sure, if you’d like.” The offer was in case Hotch didn’t trust his opinion; he was a doctor, but not an MD.

“No.”

Reid’s smile faded and he went to open up the first aid kit. “Okay then, I’ll just, um, clean it and bandage it up. If anyone asks we can just say that, uh...” god, what could they say? Hotch wasn’t a clumsy guy, not even after almost getting blown up was he clumsy.

“You closed a door on my hand?” Hotch offered with the closest thing he’d had to a smile since waking up from that nightmare.

“That’ll work,” Reid gave a small laugh, just happy to have Hotch interacting with him. He reached over Hotch’s body some to grab the bloodied towel now piled on the other side of the bed and set it on Hotch’s leg that was nearest him. Reid was not surprised that Hotch shifted some, seeming to note the potential awkwardness of their closeness, but he was surprised that Hotch also seemed to suck in his breath causing his stomach to tuck in and chest puff out a touch.

Hotch watched intently as Reid worked carefully on his injured hand. He found it strange that the young man had such strong, yet delicate, hands. How had he not noticed that before? How had he not noticed the quiet strength Spencer had? He’d seen glimpses of it over the years, of course, but they were under extreme circumstances. Situations where weakness meant death and thus the strength could be almost dismissed. Here and now though, with his wounded paw in the care of what most believed as a mouse of a man, Hotch saw it was more than just a basic will to survive that Reid had.

Reid felt Hotch’s eyes on him as he focused on cleaning the blood and debris from what he could soon see was a gash that ran from the base of Hotch’s pinky to the start of his wrist on his right hand. “It’s doesn’t look like it needs stitches or anything," he stated, though guessed he was talking more to himself. “It’s stopped bleeding,” Reid added as he set a large band-aid styled bandage over the side of Hotch’s hand before grabbing gauze to add to the hand and wrist in order to stabilize the two and prevent accidental reopening of the wound. 

When he got no indication he was heard Reid looked up and was met with Hotch’s deep, dark, eyes. “Hotch? ...Aaron?”

“Thank you, Spencer,” Aaron stated simply and with a softness that was both unintended and bordered on intimate.

“You’re welcome, Aaron,” Spencer replied in kind, with a smile.

***

_"...melancholy is a fearful gift. What is it but the telescope of truth?" ~ Lord Byron_  



	8. One Slip

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Within the story: Italics = Inner Monologue

  
_Beware of allowing a tactless word, a rebuttal, a rejection to obliterate the whole sky. ~ Confucius_

***

Aaron Hotchner was never one to truly follow his urges. Hardly a surprise considering the few times he had he’d been punished in some way. As a tot he’d go for that second cookie only to get a smack upside the head and no meals the next day. As a boy the one time he’d indulged his growing rage at a bully he was the one suspended for fighting. And when he was a teen he’d followed a want for some physical intimacy only to have his mother walk in on him.

Still there was something about that moment that made him forget those brutal lessons of the past. Maybe it was the Oxy from his relapse still swimming in his veins or that the moment demanded he not think more than any other. Or maybe, just maybe, his mind was still so shut down that he had nothing else to go on except instincts and urges that drove him to close the gap between himself and his friend, his teammate, his subordinate.

Reid didn’t move, didn’t pull back. Not even as he felt what were surprisingly soft, very tentative, lips on his. He was both surprised and not at the same time, if that were possible. He’d noted Hotch’s seeming increased interest in his sexuality over the past days, one that went beyond the standard and simple “Are you gay?” question. That being said he’d never expected Hotch to take any sort of action; Hotch was a man of action only in the field as far as Reid could tell. Then again people can surprise you. They can stun you. They can even confuse the hell out of you enough that you stupidly, inconsiderately, are moved to speech without thought. “What are you doing?”

The spell was gone, broken. Hotch immediately pulled back, yanked his busted hand painfully from Reid’s, and cleared his throat as he stood up a tad too fast. The room spun and his stomach churned as he felt himself loose balance before slender, steadying, hands set themselves onto his bare stomach and bare back.

“Hotch?”

“Get off me!” He growled with a twist of his body and shove of Reid’s. Rage worked a lot better as an emotion to keep his balance than embarrassment.

Reid was not so lucky; he tipped back onto the bed, needing his hands to keep himself from landing flat. He looked up at his boss nervously, but not hurt. He knew Hotch was lashing out, covering up whatever feelings of hurt, rejection, and insecurity he had in rage. 

What Reid wasn’t sure of was how far Hotch would let his rage go. When turned away by those they expected to accept them some closeted guys were satisfied with a little name calling and pushing, others weren’t until they saw blood. Reid wasn’t quite sure where Hotch might fall clean and sober let alone as a recovering addict. 

“I’m sorry.”

“Fuck you,” Hotch spat back as he charged towards the bed. For a brief moment Reid looked worried that he might get hit and, for a brief second, Hotch considered it. 

Even knowing Reid wouldn’t deserve it Hotch wanted to. He simply could not think of verbal way to express himself, to explain the ego-crushing Reid’s simple question had accomplished. It wouldn't be fair though, so instead Hotch stuck with a glare...not a glare of anger so much as one of questioning hurt. 

_How could you Reid? How could you make me feel these things and then seem so unsure and confused when I act on them? How could you make me put myself out there and then reject me?!_

Hotch focused on his denier as he grabbed his awaiting tee shirt off the bed, pulling it out from under one of Reid’s steadying hands causing him to slip back on the cheap comforter, and then headed into the bathroom.

Reid sighed the moment Hotch slammed the door behind him. He first sat up, then stood and gave another sigh. What had he done? He’d asked a question. A valid one in most cases, but the wrong one in this and he should have known better. He knew damn well what Hotch had been doing and with one thoughtless opening of his mouth he’d likely echoed the Aaron’s own lifetime of self-doubt and insecurities. 

What was the worst thing you could do to a person unsure of their own sexuality? Question them on it.

***

Aaron clenched his shirt in his good hand and stared in the hotel bathroom mirror at himself.

What in the hell had he been thinking? That Reid would understand the inner workings of his mind when he couldn’t? That, if he acted on an urge, he wouldn’t get slapped down as brutally as he had all those other times? They say the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. Hotch was not insane; he should know better.

Hotch let out a sigh and began to run the facet bitterly cold before doing his best to splash his face with one good hand. When he felt he couldn’t take the shock of the sensation anymore he stopped, turned the water off, and went to wipe his face. 

It was then that he caught sight of what was once a smooth, flawless, chest now decorated in scars. They were all healed now, faint, but still noticeable. Yet he hadn’t even seemed to recall their existence when on the bed with Reid, nor had Reid seemed to notice them at all. That alone had felt good. 

Yet that feeling was gone now. With a sigh he worked his shirt over his head and down his body to cover himself.

He looked back in the mirror. There. Back to normal. As if nothing had ever happened. 

...Until there was a knock on the door...

Sadly, unlike his parents while he grew up or he and Haley after them, it seemed Reid wasn’t just going to bury the awkwardness until it boiled over into a potential screaming match at some point. He wasn’t going to let Hotch deal with what happened in a way the man, honestly, was far more comfortable with. Even his voice, though insistent, was without any malice or strain of anger or frustration.

“Hotch,” he knocked again. “Hotch, I think we should talk...can we?”

Fine, if Reid wanted to have it out now then they would, but Aaron Hotchner was a man used to control so they’d fight in the way he determined.

***

Reid had paced, then sat down and decided to let Hotch have his privacy, but then got up again thinking it would be better to clear the air now than let the tension build and risk issues later. Especially as the team worked a case. He was a little surprised to see Hotch agreed as he threw open the door.

“Fine. Talk.” Hotch ordered at the door.

...Maybe "agreed" and "talk" had been too strong of words, Reid thought as he was momentarily stunned by the open hostility still being thrown his way. Deserved or not, it was still surprising how two simple words could hit like fists. He took a deep breath and pressed on.

“I’m sorry.”

“For?”

“The question it was...” Reid shrugged. “It was stupid and, uh, insensitive.”

As quickly as his rage had built up Hotch felt it melt away. No one was supposed to fold that quickly. Neither party was to admit they’d done anything wrong until voices were raised enough to risk waking the kids or alerting the neighbors. Even when apologies were given they were never, ever, to hit the mark on the actual reason an apology was in order. 

“Uh...”

“I understand if you’re still angry, if you stay angry, but please know that I...” Reid took a breath. “I didn’t mean to offend you in anyway. I know how hard it is to put yourself out there to anyone and how much it hurts to have someone not only rebuff you, but...well...question your motives. No, not just your motives, but how you feel and even who you are as a person.”

“What are you doing?” Hotch asked in just as bewildered a tone as Reid had after the kiss.

Reid gave a guilty face. “I know. I’m so sorry, Hotch, I can’t believe I asked that. Especially after you’d been so, uh, courageous in, you know, expressing yourself and your feelings with me, and I just...”

Hotch watched as Reid’s voice picked up not in volume, but in speed, like it did when he ranted on some bizarrely random factoid or belief. He was on a tangent. “Reid...Reid.” He continued on about the potential negative implications his question had the on trust between the two as if he hadn’t heard Hotch speak at all. 

“Spencer,” Aaron barked just enough to shock him into silence, then smiled gently. “Please, stop apologizing.” He wasn’t accustomed to it and, as the rant had continued, it bordered on uncomfortable for him.

“Sorry,” Reid blurted out without thinking before he gave a sheepish smile that made clear he was holding back yet another apology.

“I’m fine.”

“Are you sure?”

“I’d prove it, if I could.”

“Maybe you can.” Reid’s lips pulled thin into what Hotch could only identify as a smirk.

That didn’t mean he knew what Reid was thinking though. “How’s that?”

“Give it another try.”

“What?”

Reid’s smirk became a full smile and the natural plumpness of his lips returned. “The kiss.”

Hotch felt his face flush in a mixture of embarrassment and general nerves. “Oh, uh, well...” It took him a moment to think of a comeback that could almost be called smooth. “I thought I wasn’t your type, Spencer.”

Spencer pursed his lips in an almost cocky way before smiling more genuinely. “I told you, Aaron,” if Hotch was using first names he would too. “I prefer to allow for a flow in my private life.” He stepped a little closer, dropped the volume of his voice a touch. “I don’t have rules that I live by, especially in my desires. They are what they are. Right now they’re for your lips.” The lips of an alpha male who, for once, seemed the one on the verge of stuttering nervously.

The senior agent was unsure what to say, what to do. The first attempt at genuinely expressing himself to Reid had gone horribly, painfully, awry. Even with the encouragement he wasn’t sure he had the guts to try again. He opened his mouth to protest, to stick with the safety of ignoring urges, but was stopped almost forcefully by another pair of lips. 

Reid’s lips. Soft, strong, and anything but tentative. These were the lips of a man who knew what he wanted and what he was doing. So unlike what Aaron Hotchner would ever expect of his youngest, most socially awkward, team member. This was a kiss that virtually demanded obedience. 

Obedience Aaron gave, letting his lips part a touch to meet and play and follow the movements of Spencer’s. That feeling of security he had felt while sitting with on the bed, letting Reid care for his hand, returned.

***

_"A rejection is nothing more than a necessary step in the pursuit of success." ~ Bo Bennett_  



	9. Degrees of Sin

  
_A believer is far more apt to be burdened with a sense of sin, and to feel the fear of it in his own character than an unbeliever; because if we are carried along the stream we fear nothing, and it is only when we strive against it, that its progress and power are discernible. ~ John Owen_

***

Hotch could not recall the last time he’d kissed someone. Just kissed, but with a kiss that made his heart pound rapidly until he grew light-headed. Until his body swayed back and forth, risked colliding into the other person. Into Reid. It was thrilling and terrifying at the same time. Then it stopped.

Reid gave a “Mmm,” as he pulled back with a faint smile. “We should stop.” Hotch frowned and Reid's smile grew. “You look like you’re going to pass out.”

“I’m not.”

“Still,” Reid took half a step back. “It’s better to ere on the side caution. How are you feeling? With the withdrawals, I mean, are they manageable?”

It was then that Hotch noticed, even as his heart relaxed back to normal, he was shaking and queasy. “I think so. It’s hard to tell.” Between withdrawal from the drugs and withdrawal from the kiss.

Reid’s smile stayed as he stepped aside. “I’ll get you some ginger ale, you go over and relax on the bed, okay?” 

Hotch nodded mutely and headed towards the bed as he was told.

Spencer went to open another bottle and pour the ginger ale into one of the small hotel glasses. He set the glass down on Hotch's side of the bedside table. “If you’re all set, I’m going to take a quick shower.” 

“Now?” Hotch questioned with a curious look up as he eased himself onto the bed. As far as he could tell Reid preferred early AM showers. It was evening now.

“Um...” Reid social awkwardness returned, his cheeks flushed, and he couldn’t quite make eye contact with Hotch. “Yeah. Just a quick one. You’ll be alright for a bit right?”

Hotch was still puzzled by Reid’s sudden desire to shower, but the question distracted him and he gave a crooked smile as he jokingly deadpanned. “Of course. I’m an addict, not an invalid, right?”

Reid almost laughed at the comment. “Right. I’ll be back shortly. If you do need something just give a holler.” He then turned to head into the bathroom, closing the door behind him.

***

Reid’s skin was always sensitive, it was why he generally wore his watch over clothing, but when in engaged in an act that might be sensual it was doubly so. Not that it was the kiss itself, he had better control than that; it was something that Hotch had done during the kiss. Reid doubted Hotch even realized it, but it was what reminded Reid to pull away when he did. As they kissed, as their tongues took those first ventures out to meet, Hotch had reached out. Whether it was for balance or Reid himself he couldn’t be sure, but Aaron had reached out and touched his stomach. Barely a graze, he probably felt more of his own shirt than Hotch’s hand, but it was enough to get the blood pumping harder and head below the belt. Nothing another would notice, but enough that Reid knew it was best to stop. Best to care for it now rather than ignore it and risk an awkward morning with sticky boxers.

Reid closed the bathroom door behind him and noted the pile of clothes Hotch had left behind from his shower. He gave a small smile as he went to fold them up and set them up on the towel rack so they were out of the way. Then he began to strip out of his own, leaving them in a pile on the floor, caring less what happened to them than to Hotch’s suit. He turned on the shower, grabbed the hotel lotion bottle, and took a deep breath in preparation for the frigid temperature he knew was coming after Hotch’s turn from before. He stepped in and, even in readying for it, the temperature shock alone was almost enough to make him go soft. He dipped his head under the showerhead in attempts to adjust just like jumping into freezing water rather than wading in and, soon enough, the water was tolerable. 

Reid closed his eyes for a bit trying to recall the moment; recall Hotch’s endearing nerves and the way his lips felt and tasted. Spencer remembered that faint touch to his stomach, placed his own hand gently against the skin there, to help the memory along, before moving the hand over his torso slowly. He felt his heart rate begin to increase once more and began to intentionally take bigger breaths as he imagined his hand was Aaron’s.

He licked his lips a touch as he let the hand at his stomach slip lower, teasing himself. It worked; his member grew and hardened fully. It never took long once something had already stimulated him. Spencer took a moment to grab up the lotion where he’d left it in the soap basin and shake some out onto his hand (he knew better than to risk using soap or conditioner, especially of the cheap hotel variety) before reaching down to take himself in his hand.

The strokes started slow, but steady, as he thought about Aaron in the other room. He thought of the strong build of the body and strong features in the face. He imagined the kiss going farther than it had, imagined he’s pressed himself into Aaron’s hand and the hand slipping down to where his own was now. Spencer’s moved to stroke himself a little faster as his free hand went to the wall to ensure steadiness.

He pictured removing Aaron’s shirt and seeing that battle-scarred chest once more. He recalled how Hotch had puffed himself out some while he fixed the man’s hand and that the man’s nipples seemed to have stuck out as if aroused. Spencer imagined what might happen if he were allowed to have a nip or lick at one. Would Aaron squirm or puff out more and press into him or simply moan? His bit his lip to muffle his own moan as he gave his shaft a quick pump between strokes.

Most would suspect that it was Hotch’s seemingly natural dominant personality that would get a man like Reid going. Morgan certainly seemed to think so. But it wasn’t. After all the typical alpha male types were the bullies that caused Reid pain throughout his early years...why would he actively seek out the same sort of person in his adult life? He wouldn't. No, it wasn’t that Hotch was an alpha male. It was that, despite the dominant personality, Aaron seemed to feel deeply and passionately about all things, that despite trying to hide it under a calm face, his emotions were always just under the surface. All one really had to do was search Aaron’s eyes to see that. ...Also he seemed the type that could be playfully ruffled with little more than a few words and, honestly, that potential amused Dr. Reid to no end.

As Spencer began to envision Aaron’s mouth working the same length his own hand was he felt the first drips of sticky pre-release. The hand at the wall clenched into a fist as his panting breath grew erratic in spite of the efforts he made to keep it in check. Of course most of his efforts seemed lost causes now as he shuddered and let out gasps and moans. If he thought about it logically Spencer was lucky he was still standing. 

...But he was only thinking of those thin, strong, lips sucking him off. “Fuck!” he exclaimed suddenly as a sensation not unlike all the muscles in his body exploding at once hit him hard.

He stayed still as he came down off the orgasm, afraid movement might cause his legs to finally buckle, until his breathing and heart rate came down. Then he gently removed his hand from his depleted organ and ran it under the water. He cleaned up the rest of himself and ensured everything was washed down the drain before turning off the water and stepping out. After drying off he placed enough of his clothes back on to be considered decent.

To Reid this was all part of human nature. People wanted; they craved and desired. When you couldn’t act on it for whatever reason it was perfectly normal to satisfy the needs by other methods. When he was younger his mother had taught him that love, in whatever form it came in, was a good thing. A thing to be celebrated and accepted. Just so long as it was morally sound and no one felt forced, one should pursue love whenever they could find it. The concept of sin was only to be found in books.

***

Aaron Hotchner had a distinctly different upbringing. While not strictly religious per say, it was morally strict. You were to obey your elders, you did not talk back, and free exchange of thoughts, feelings, and information was not the norm. Cravings and desires, if you were bold enough to have them at all, were to be controlled. Acts of love were for marriage and acts of self-love were for deviants. Love itself occurred between one man and one woman, there wasn’t another option. The concept of sin might not have been religion-based for the Hotchner household, but Aaron’s mother drilled in her son the idea it was still very real.

As Hotch grew older he, of course, developed his own moral code. One that was more lax and understanding of those around him. That being said aspects of his mother’s clung to him no matter his attempts to shake them off. He waited until married to first have sex (which lead to a rather embarrassingly awkward honeymoon for both himself and his new bride) and, though gratefully accepted when offered, Hotch never asked his wife for any other form of bedroom pleasures. He did take things into his own hand when need be, as it were, but only in the shower where he could wash up immediately after. He only did such a thing when certain he was alone and there was no risk of being caught in any way. Those feelings he sometimes had for those who weren’t his wife? They were ignored, dismissed, or otherwise disparaged. They were not allowed and so Hotch refused to acknowledge them. ...This time though, as he remembered that strangely powerful kiss given to him by Spencer, it was proving more difficult than ever before.

He wondered if Reid was thinking about him as he showered, just as he was thinking about Reid while he sat on the bed replaying their kiss over and over in his mind. He looked down and examined his bandaged hand, recalling the delicate manner in which Reid had cleaned and cared for the wound beneath. It was almost wrong that a young man with such a gentle, caring, touch should have such a powerful kiss. Most surprising (or maybe troubling, or maybe both) though was Aaron’s inability to dismiss the thoughts he had about Spencer or ignore that sudden rush he felt whenever he thought of those full lips crashing into his. A sudden rush that, as he continued to replay the moment and picked up more tiny details from it, headed to his groin.

Hotch shifted some, cleared his throat, and shifted again. He took a deep breath and tried to relax, clear his mind, so the issue didn’t become a problem. True that there was a solution should that happen, but Hotch couldn’t do that. He couldn’t enjoy himself, relieve himself, with Reid in the vicinity; he couldn’t do that with anyone in the vicinity. So, instead, Hotch used years of practiced control to restrain the urges back and away. By the time the running water stopped Hotch felt confident his issue was dealt with and he listened to Reid’s movement within the bathroom before looking up as the door opened.

“Sorry, I forgot to bring a change of clothes in,” Reid confessed as he stepped out in his plain gray tee shirt and boxers as colorful as his mismatched socks tended to be; his pants were slung over his arm, watch and socks in his hand.

Hotch stared, unsure what to do or even where to look. The gray shirt Reid wore stuck to him at odd places about his upper body where it’d met with water and so did his boxers, the edges of which clung to slender legs and hips while Reid walked over to his bag. His hair still dripped as he bent over to seek and find his sweat pants. Yet none of those things were what really stunned Hotch. What did was Reid’s face. It was more flushed than before he left for his shower and his lids seemed a bit lower now, like someone after a nice Thanksgiving Day feast. He looked full, satisfied, satiated. Hotch could guess the reason why but...no. Reid wouldn’t do that, especially not with another person in the next room. Would he?

Reid turned after slipping on his sweats and couldn’t help but laugh a touch at Hotch’s expression. “I take it you didn’t grow up in a naked house?” he teased.

“Excuse me?” Hotch was dumbfounded by the question, but also provoked into action. The action of grabbing the pillow closest to him and setting it over his lap just in case that issue he’d had returned or, worse yet, returned and then became a problem.

Reid noticed the precautionary cover up, but let it slide with a slight smile. “You know, a house that allowed some kind of nudity.”

“No,” Hotch replied with instinctive severity before adding with a slight smile. “Well, when Jack was about two, two and a half, he used to like running around without clothes on but...” he shrugged a touch and shook his head knowing it wasn’t the same thing and not in the least because both he and Haley had discouraged the behavior. Then he posed the question in return. “Did you?”

Reid crawled onto his bed, his hair still dripping some. “Somewhat. I mean we weren’t nudists or anything, but with my mom and all it was hard to hold fast to any set schedule or list of rules. If I had to rush out of the shower with only time to throw underwear on to help Mom with something, then that’s what happened. If I had to help her while she was still in her robe then that happened too.” He stopped moving over the bed and sat, crossing his legs as if doing a yoga pose, when he reached the edge near Hotch. “Did it bother you?”

“What?”

“When I first came out.”

Hotch’s lips curled awkwardly into a half-smile as his face heated a bit. “More stunned, I think.” Unsure what else to say he added. “Was it a...good...shower?”

Reid gave a chuckle as he nodded. “It did the job.”

“Oh...uh...okay.” Hotch wasn’t even sure he wanted to continue the conversation now. It wasn’t his business anyhow.

“How about we call it an early night?”

Hotch simply nodded his agreement before he gave a couch, sipped at his ginger ale, and got under the covers of his bed. He kept that pillow by him, though as he tried to relax he used it more as something to grab as ripples of pain began to run over his body. The agent had a bad feeling that this early night was still going to be a long one as the familiar pains of withdrawal returned...

***

_"Sin is a state of mind, not an outward act." ~ J. M. Sewell_  



	10. Dirty Clean

  
_For every problem there is a solution which is simple, clean and wrong. ~ Henry Louis Mencken_

***

That night and the next two days were as bad as, if not worse than, the first for Hotch thanks to his little relapse. He was exhausted, sick to his stomach, achy all over, and Reid still had to shave him in the mornings because his hands shook so bad. He suffered through as the others on the team treated him like he had the plague...hardly a surprise given even he would confess he looked like walking death.

He felt like it too. As Hotch shuffled back into the hotel room, Reid close behind, he could barely make it to his bed before collapsing on it with a groan. He took a deep breath in, but it quickly caught in his too-dry throat and he began to cough so badly he had to sit back up. He loosened his tie as he worked to regain control over the cough, something he made more difficult while he tried to speak. “I can’t believe,” he paused to cough. “I might be getting a cold too.”

“It’s not a cold, it’s part of the withdrawals.”

“The fun never ends, does it?”

“Approximately one week,” Reid replied simply as he headed past Hotch and removed his own tie.

Hotch looked over, watched, as Reid unbuttoned and removed his suit shirt. “Excuse me?”

Reid looked back with a smile. “It takes approximately one week for the symptoms of Oxycontin withdrawal to subside.” He leaned over to grab his first aid kit out of his bag and head back over to Hotch. “So the, uh, supposed fun will end in approximately one week. That’s, of course, not taking into account the days that’ve already passed.”

Hotch couldn’t help but give a short laugh, only Reid would answer a rhetorical question in the same manner as he would a legitimate one. “And then what?”

“And then...” Reid sat on the edge of his bed, facing Hotch, before going to open and pick through the kit. “It’s up to you not to fall into the same pattern of poor thinking and coping through self-medication.”

“Did you read that off a pamphlet?”

Reid gave a bright smile. “Yes, actually, I did.” They shared a soft chuckle before Reid spoke again. “Now, give me your hand.”

“Why?”

“I want to check your hand, clean and re-wrap it if necessary.”

“Oh,” Hotch stretched out his still bandaged hand. “Thank you again for going along with the story I gave the team.” 

When asked on the morning he’d entered with the bandaged hand Hotch had claimed that Reid accidentally let the heavy hotel door shut on the hand while they’d been exiting the room. Reid had been playfully teased by the others for the last two days as a result.

“That was the plan, wasn’t it?” Reid began to carefully unravel the gauze from around Hotch’s hand.

“Still I...” Hotch wasn’t sure how to put his thoughts into words and the irritated throat that caused him to begin a second coughing fit didn’t help.

“Don’t worry about it, Hotch,” Reid replied simply as he got up to grab the bottle of water he’d had from earlier in the day and offer it to Hotch. After a sip it was handed back. “The cough’s normal, mine left in a day or two.”

Hotch nodded his understanding as he took a few deep breaths to try to get oxygen back into his lungs. “Great. What else do I have to look forward to, exactly?”

Reid's smiled was faint as he set the water bottle down on the bedside table and sat beside Hotch to return to unwrapping and examining Hotch’s hand. “Well, honestly, it depends on the person.”

“Give me generals.” Hotch requested, figuring that if he at least knew what to expect, what might happen, he could be better prepared for when it came.

“Um...” Reid carefully pulled the gauze from around Hotch’s hand. “Well there’s the sick stomach, the shaky hands, the sore muscles, the fatigue, the coughing, and, um,” he focused as he pulled the end of the gauze from the hand leaving just the bloodied bandage covering the gash surrounded by Hotch’s rainbow-bruised hand. “Some people also get hot or cold sweats, insomnia, watery eyes, depression, and, uh, even heart palpitations.” When done he looked up from Hotch’s hand to his face. “But not everyone gets all those symptoms.”

“Did you?” Hotch asked with a mixture of worry for himself and for Reid. He, of course, wasn’t looking forward to the possibility of more symptoms, of heart palpitations, but he couldn’t bear to think of Reid going through those things either. He couldn’t bear to think of anyone on the team going through those things.

“Some,” Reid nodded as he soaked a cotton ball in disinfectant and began to clean the parts of the hand that weren’t still bandaged. “But I wasn’t alone.”

“Ethan, right?”

Reid nodded as he ran the soaked cotton over the edges of the bandage. “Gideon and Ethan.” He set the cotton ball aside and began to gently pull the bandage from Hotch’s hand.

The hand twitched as tiny hairs were ripped from roots; sometimes even gentle wasn’t enough. “Did Ethan...stay with you?”

“At times,” Reid answered honestly.

“Overnight?”

Reid stopped his efforts to remove the bandage to look at Hotch. “Does it matter?”

“No.”

“Then why are you asking?”

Hotch opened his mouth to answer, but then realized he didn’t really have one. Not a reasonable answer anyway. So he shut his mouth and simply shrugged.

Reid nearly smirked. “You wouldn’t be jealous, would you?”

“No.” He replied too fast to be convincing. “I mean, I just...” Hotch gave a cough, then sighed. “This is new for me, Reid.”

Reid’s smile faded, his face grew serious. “I know, which is why you shouldn’t be worrying about any of this right now.” He returned to working on removing the bandage on Hotch’s hand, finally giving it one harsh tug at the end. “You should focus on getting better, getting clean.” He set the soiled bandage aside with the used cotton ball before going to clean the actual wound.

“Easier said than done.”

“I know,” Reid’s lip curled back into a smile. “That’s why I’m here.” He applied gentle pressure to the now closed cut. “How does your hand feel?

“Sore,” Hotch smiled back faintly. “Like the rest of me.”

“Is it warm, tingly, or itchy?”

“No.”

Reid nodded. “Good.” It meant the hand wasn’t infected or having nerve issues. He moved his fingers at the edge of the gash, pressing slightly just to be sure nothing came out that shouldn’t, but not even blood leaked. “It seems completely closed already,” he noted. “I think we should let the air get to it from now on if we can.”

“Feels nice.” Hotch commented softly. 

Reid didn’t say anything in reply; he just looked up with a smile as he moved his fingers up a little to Hotch’s wrist and rubbed the area, the pulse point. Soon he moved his hands up farther, to Hotch’s arm, and began to massage it. 

Aaron closed his eyes, focused on the feeling of his muscles melting under Spencer’s fingers. When he felt those soft lips on his he kissed back immediately, instinctively, like the other times.

The last two nights they’d kissed, but Reid had stopped them before it went too far. He knew it would be unwise to start a serious, physical, relationship with someone who was trying to get clean. It risked success and increased the potential for relapse. Especially if the relationship was as new as this was for Hotch. 

In fact, they shouldn’t even be doing this much. Still as Aaron’s tongue slipped into his mouth, Spencer’s greeted it eagerly as his hands moved to pull the tie around Hotch’s neck off.

That drive, that urge that Aaron began to have whenever Spencer was close while they were within the walls of their hotel room, crept up once again. he did his best to try and shirk off his suit jacket, though still needed help once it was at his elbow. 

Spencer obliged. He went the extra step to unbutton and strip Aaron of his pale blue shirt as well.

“Move back on the bed,” Spencer mumbled into their kiss. 

Aaron obeyed. 

Spencer followed and added. “Lay down.”

Aaron sifted to lay back with his head on the stiff hotel pillow without pause, there was no need to think it over this time. They’d done this the night before too, Spencer had explained it was safer in case he began to feel weak or dizzy like he had the very first time they kissed. He wondered how Reid had known about that happening the first time, but never asked.

Spencer shifted to lay beside Aaron, also like the night before, and went back to his massage of Aaron’s arm as he moved down. 

As Aaron’s hand explored the terrain by Spencer’s neck and collarbone he felt a hand brush over his side, and then hip, grasping it some. Aaron let out muffled grunt and pressed into Spencer slightly. These times, in the hotel, were the first times Aaron let instinct and what felt good rule in years...decades.

He still didn’t know where to, well, let his hands settle though. With Haley it’d almost always been in her hair or on her hips but he wasn’t sure that would translate to being with a man. Despite long hair he wasn’t sure Spencer would want someone tugging at it and, well, women’s hips were virtually built to be held onto, but he didn’t see that being true for a man’s. 

Then Spencer gripped his and the surge of pleasure told Aaron that men’s hips could definitely be grabbed, they could be held, and the man would like it. In excitement at this new discovery, this new way of experimenting with his need to touch, Aaron immediately pressed forward and grabbed for Spencer’s hip, pulling him closer.

Doing complex equations in his head did wonders for Reid’s body control. Even as Aaron’s hand slipped some from his hip to his thigh and his heart began to thrum in his ears, his body go from warm to hot, he knew it wouldn’t be a problem for him. He wouldn’t need to shower like the other times. Though as the distance between them was closed Spencer felt a reason that Aaron might. 

Hotch pulled away. “I’m sorry.”

“Why?”

“I...” Hotch began to shrink away a little more, clearly embarrassed by his body’s reaction.

“Got hard?”

Hotch almost winced at the crude wording. “Well…yes.”

“It happens,” Reid smiled softly. “In fact it’s really rather common with this sort of activity.”

“Are you mocking me?” Hotch’s tone took on a subtle hint of amusement.

Reid's smile grew. “Only a little.” He gave a soft laugh before growing serious. “But...um...seriously, Hotch, you don’t need to apologize. I’m just...you know...glad you were so clearly enjoying what we were doing.”

Hotch looked down to confess. “It’s embarrassing. I’m not a fourteen-year-old boy and this isn’t the first time I’ve been intimate with someone else. I should have better control over my own body.”

“You don’t need to be in control all the time, Hotch.”

“Honestly, I don’t think I’ve been in control at all since, well...” Since Foyet.

Reid sat up and looked down at Hotch. “You’re taking control of your addiction.”

“No, you are.” Hotch countered as he turned to look up at Spencer. He himself couldn’t find the strength to sit up just now.

“I’m helping,” Reid countered with a gentle smile. “In the end, it’s up to you, Aaron. It’s the same with us.” 

Hotch gave a confused look, but said nothing. 

“You kissed me first, remember? I’m going off your reactions, not the other way around.” It was true, if he gave any indication of discomfort Spencer would stop and wouldn’t try anything else until he did. Spencer was going with the flow; Aaron’s flow.

“I don’t know what I’m doing.” In either his addiction recovery or with Reid.

“You don’t have to, it’s why I’m here.”

“To help?”

Reid gave a nod. “To help.” He set a hand on Hotch’s thigh. “And I can help, if you’d like.”

“I...I don’t know.” 

Somehow letting Reid handle that specific problem, help satisfy that need for release, would make what they were doing all the more real. Hotch wouldn’t be able to deny the feelings he was having for his male teammate or how good it felt to have his lips on him. He’d have to face up to certain realities he wasn’t quite sure he was ready to yet.

Reid almost immediately, but politely, pulled his hand back. “I don’t have to, it was just an offer, Hotch. Like I said, you’re in control.” He was fine with whatever decision the other made.

“What would you do, exactly?”

“Whatever you’d like. Exactly.” Spencer smiled. “It wouldn’t be about me, it’d be about you.”

Hotch thought for a few moments, debated, then shook his head. “No, I,” he started to get up. “I don’t think I can.”

“That’s fine,” Reid nodded. He understood if it was too soon or an act that simply made Hotch uncomfortable. “May I kiss you once again?”

Hotch gave a slight smile and nod, though he didn’t wait. He leaned in and kissed Spencer all on his own. 

The kiss started off simple, light, and that was how Aaron had intended to keep it. It wasn't meant to be though.

He wanted, needed more, and deepened the kiss. Let the edges or it roughen in demand. Aaron's blood rushed again, pooled between his legs, he started to ache. He hadn’t ached in a long time; he forgot how uncomfortable the sensation could be. The kiss became something of a frenzy as if Spencer’s lips on his alone could fix the problem if he just tried hard enough, but it didn’t. 

“It possible to, um...” he bare pulled his lips back as he spoke. “Change my mind?” He needed more and he knew it.

“About my help?” Spencer questioned, letting the hand that had been at Aaron’s chest slip down to the hardness between his thighs.

Aaron Hotchner forced out a moan of an answer as his breath caught in his throat. “Yes.”

“Of course,” Spencer’s hand pressed into Aaron’s lap, finding the hard bulge of an erection and applying light pressure as he went to kiss Aaron once more. His lips began to vibrate as moans slipped into his mouth.

If he’d been with Haley this would be the time they would take the traditional steps of laying back on the bed, undressing, and making love. Just as expected. Clean and simple. Yet Aaron found he didn’t even want that right now. As he began to take shorter breaths, to pant as his body heated, he just wanted to keep feeling Spencer’s hand over him.

Spencer moved his hand according to Aaron’s reactions. When Aaron pressed up, he applied pressure and when Aaron shifted back he lightened his touch. He focused on the man, on his pleasure, getting pleasure from giving it. It was thrilling knowing he could do this for Hotch. To Hotch. 

He felt Aaron’s erection seem to almost throb through the fabric of his pants and knew he was close, a fact confirmed when Spencer began to feel a small damp spot against his hand. He didn't stop. Hee moved his lips down to Aaron’s neck, let his tongue slip out over flesh, and then blew gently over the area.

Aaron was practically squirming under the skilled palming when he felt the warm wetness of Spener’s tongue before the cool breeze of blown air over his jugular. That little move, that simple contrast made, pushed aside the last bit of control Hotch had. His muscles tensed so that they shook painfully and he muttered a curse under his breath before what felt like a shot of pure pleasure and peace flew through his body. 

Hotch opened his eyes slowly as the sticky sensation of his own release could be felt on his clothing and against his inner thighs.

“You should go have a hot bath.” Spencer whispered in his ear softly as he removed his hand from Hotch’s crotch.

“Huh?” The words weren’t sinking in through the afterglow.

“A bath. To wash up,” Reid elaborated. “They seem to relax you.” He gave Aaron a soft kiss on the cheek before turning his head some to look in Hotch’s eye. “And it’s been shown that the steam from warm water can help aid in the control of a cough so, if you take a nice, warm, bath, you’ll get the best of both.”

Aaron let out a breath that was almost a chuckle. “Another pamphlet?”

“Medical textbook and experience.”

Hotch gave a slow nod as he stood with a smile.

***

Aaron Hotchner slipped into the soothingly steaming hot water slowly, giving a mix between a groan and moan as he did. He laid back as best he could, letting his muscles relax in the bath water. He tried to clear his mind, or short of that simply focus on the good.

The case was over, the local officers used their profile to find and arrest the UNSUB, and tomorrow morning the team would be flying back home. He imagined being able to sleep in his own bed would feel far better than the stiff mattress of the hotel, but of course with his own apartment came the memory of what happened there. Of Foyet and the knowledge the beast was still out there, hunting, waiting to strike, and Hotch still hadn’t yet figured out when or how. Yes, Haley and Jack were safely tucked away in protective custody, but...

Hotch sunk his head under the water the best he could to drown the thoughts. A figurative cleaning of the mind before returning to better thoughts.

The team seemed in good working order under Morgan and while he was sure they knew something was wrong no one seemed to have pinpointed the exact reason for his sudden illness. Hotch had to confess he was impressed that while Reid stayed by his side almost constantly never once did something happen that would raise eyebrows while on the job. Not once did Hotch worry someone, anyone, would find out about what he and Reid had done the night before and he felt secure no one would. Of course that brought up some less than pleasant thoughts itself. 

Not bad ones, just confusing ones. What was he doing with Reid? Reid was a subordinate and a male one at that. He was a straight man with an ex-wife that he loved and a son. Wasn’t he? If he really made the effort to look back, which Hotch rarely did, he had to wonder...

Yes, he loved Haley. She was the mother of his child and a truly wonderful woman that he wondered if he didn’t, however unintentionally, sell a bill of goods to. He’d pursued her because she was a suitable match for him; smart, attractive, came from a good family, and seemed thrilled with the idea of being a wife and mother. He’d made her his high school sweetheart and then married her because it was what those in his family did and it was what was expected of him. And, until Haley seemed to realize she’d always be second fiddle to the chaos of his job, their marriage progressed very much the same way...according to what was expected. Feelings were never in doubt or conflicted. It was comfortable. It was clean and simple.

That wasn’t the case with Reid. Hotch couldn’t even put a finger on what exactly his feelings were, but he knew they were conflicted. They were urgent and wanting and even scary in their inability to control. Things weren’t going to go as expected if Hotch pursued this attraction. They’d get messy and he knew it...but that was what made it exciting. Wasn’t it?

Hotch laid his head back on the edge of the tub and closed his eyes, taking deep breaths of the steam in through his nose and out through his mouth. He stopped debating himself. 

Reid was right again. The bath did help his cough and it did relax him and all his muscles. He did get the best of both from a nice, warm, bath. It also cleaned him of the evidence from his and Reid's latest escapades so that, when he got out, if he felt the need, he could pretend they never happened.

***

_"I believe in getting into hot water - it helps keep you clean.” ~ G. K. Chesterton_  



	11. Avoid the Unavoidable

  
_The resolution to avoid an evil is seldom framed till the evil is so far advanced as to make avoidance impossible ~ Thomas Hardy_

***

For the first time in years Aaron Hotchner awoke in the arms of another. Though this time it was different. The arms around him were a man’s, the person laying with him in the hotel bed was a man. A teammate. A subordinate. Hotch quickly, but carefully, slipped away to head to the bathroom.

He closed the door gently and turned to look in the mirror. He looked and felt only slightly better than he had yesterday. He ran the faucet, splashed his face in attempts to wake up, then went to take a shower. This morning he forced himself to shave on his own, a task accomplished with just two nicks. Then he redressed, stepped out, grabbed his suit for the day, and went back into the bathroom.

By the time Agent Hotchner was back out of the room Reid was just waking up. 

“The plane leaves in about an hour and a half,” Hotch stated simply as he began to pull his things from drawers and return them to his go-bag.

“Um...okay,” Reid sat up slowly sensing something was wrong, but not quite able to put his finger on it. “You need help with anything?”

“No.”

Now he knew...Hotch was pulling back. Even though they never went any farther than Reid pleasuring him through his clothes, that they really did only sleep in the same bed, it’d been too much for Hotch. He was shutting down and for the moment Reid let him. 

“Okay then,” he replied simply as he got out of bed and began to go through his own morning routine.

***

On the ride home Hotch sat clear on the other side of the plane from Reid and buried himself in paperwork barely glancing at anyone. He gave the occasional clearing of the throat and ran his finger under his eyes to clear excess water away, but otherwise did nothing to indicate he was at all unwell. Yet his mind was as unsettled as his stomach throughout the flight back home to Quantico.

What had he done? What if someone, anyone, suspected something? The always proper, always professional, always following the code of conduct SSA Aaron Hotchner had spent the night in the arms of a male subordinate! He’d allowed himself to, essentially, be jerked him off at the end of a case in the hotel room! And he’d enjoyed it!!! It was disgusting...that’s what his parents would’ve thought, that was for sure. That Aaron was disgusting and he should feel ashamed of himself. 

Of course Hotch did feel shame. Shame and disgust and a deep desire not to feel those things at all. He wanted it to be okay for him to want Spencer, but his tightly controlled upbringing simply wouldn’t allow that.

***

Reid didn’t take it personal that Hotch avoided him on the plane. He didn’t take it personal when Hotch avoided him at the office. And he didn’t take it personal when, on their next case, Hotch paired him with everyone anyone but himself. Clearly Aaron had hit his comfort level and wasn’t comfortable around him at the moment...Spencer just hoped, eventually, he would be able to work through or put aside his issues and they could at least go back to the friendship they’d had.

Then, after another case of being completely avoided by the man, Reid saw something he took personal. Something that caused alarms to go off in his head. Despite a ritual of coming in on Saturdays for, at least, a half-day Hotch was a sudden no show. For a recovering addict this was not a good sign, even when the recovering addict seemed, by all accounts, off his drug of choice.

The moment Spencer thought he was able he slipped out of the offices and headed towards Hotch’s apartment. It took him a train ride and rather lengthy drive in his beat up old bug, but he made it nevertheless. He approached the security officer at the front lobby desk and used his federal credentials to get into the building without having to buzz up to Hotch’s place for approval...he wondered briefly if that was what Foyet did, used Morgan’s credentials to get past the basic security. Reid shook off the thought almost the moment he had it though and pressed onto the elevators then down the hall to Hotch’s apartment. 

He knocked politely at first, but then with a more force and urgency when, despite hearing the television on, there seemed no effort being made to open the door from inside. It wasn’t until the TV was turned off, but no other sounds were heard indicating Hotch was trying to pretend he wasn’t there, that Reid spoke up. 

“Open the door Hotch! Open it or I swear I’ll make a scene!” He knew threatening to break down the door would be seen as empty since he didn’t have the strength. A scene was something Hotch knew he could make however.

***

Hotch threw open the door with a glare that matched the one he’d had when Reid first confessed to taking his Oxycontin.

“What do you want?”

“To make sure you’re okay.”

“I’m fine.”

“You smell like Scotch.” 

Reid slipped past Hotch by going under the man’s arm that braced against the doorframe. Not surprisingly he saw the coffee table held a half-empty bottle of Scotch, an empty glass, and numerous slips of papers and folders on George Foyet. 

“Replacing one addiction for two others," he noted, not even bothering to make it into a question.

“Get out,” Hotch ordered still at the door having only turned to watch Reid enter his apartment.

“Still avoiding the real issues.”

Hotch slammed the door and headed over to Reid without engaging with his usual safety measures of locking and setting the alarm. “Get the fuck out of my apartment, Reid.” He was in no mood for this, he didn’t want to be confronted with anything and especially not by Reid.

Reid didn’t make any attempts to leave, much to Hotch’s annoyance he went to sit on the couch instead.

“What the hell is wrong with you?” Hotch stormed forward and nearly lifted Reid off his feet as he yanked him from the couch.

Unlike before Hotch was no longer shaky, no longer in a weakened state, and Reid had to dig in his heels a little to ensure Hotch didn’t drag him across the living room. 

“I’m not leaving,” he finally twisted his arm out of Hotch’s grasp. “You can avoid me, your co-workers, and everything that happened when we shared the hotel room together Hotch, I really don’t care,” (a slight lie), “but you can’t do it by drowning yourself in Scotch and the search for Foyet.”

“You’re overreacting.”

“You’ve had half a bottle and it’s what? Three in the afternoon?”

“So?”

“So you’re just switching focus, switching drugs,” Reid stated. “You’re still avoiding the issues you began with.” Hotch just sighed and let Reid go as he continued, pressed, while walking around the coffee table. “It’s not that shocking given you’re still living here.”

“I’m not moving.”

Reid ignored him as he headed towards the small dining area near the kitchen. “You need some way to deal with the memories. Overcome them in some way...some healthy. Especially when here, of all places, they can’t just be avoided.”

“Stop profiling me, Reid”

Reid stopped when he stood about where Hotch was when he faced The Reaper then turned back to Hotch. “I’m not profiling you, Aaron.”

“Then what are you doing?”

“If you’re going to stay here, live here, you need to stop avoiding what happened. You need to confront and, uh, destroy, the memories, so to speak. I’m here to help.”

Aaron Hotchner gave a soft, almost shy, smile remembering the last time Spencer Reid “helped” him, but the smile disappeared a moment after he'd made it.

***

_"Virtue is not the absence of vices or the avoidance of moral dangers; virtue is a vivid and separate ting, like pain or a particular smell." ~ G. K. Chesterton_   



	12. Reenact the Act

  
_The metaphor is perhaps one of man's most fruitful potentialities. Its efficacy verges on magic, and it seems a tool for creation which God forgot inside one of His creatures when He made him. ~ José Ortega y Gasset_

***

Aaron Hotchner lay on the floor of his apartment next to Spencer Reid. He took a deep breath in, then out, then turned his head to the younger man. “What is the point of this?”

“Just...stay still,” Reid replied softly.

“I’m not doing this,” Hotch started to sit up, “without explanation.”

Reid grabbed the collar of his shirt as if to pull him back down, but Hotch had regained all his physical strength so Reid was partly pulled up until he let go instead. “Remember the last time you were laying here?”

“Of course,” Hotch snapped. The last time was when Foyet had knocked him to the floor, had pinned him there with the killer’s own weight, and stabbed him so many times he lost count.

“Foyet took you down,” Reid proceeded as if he hadn’t heard, his voice remaining gentle. “He forced you to the floor. How?”

Hotch looked warningly at Reid when he heard the potentially triggering word. Forced. Then he turned to look straight ahead once again. “I charged, he got the upper hand.” Simple, straightforward, not a lie, but not detailed.

“How?” Reid wasn’t going to allow Hotch leave it at that, with vagueness that allowed him to continue to avoid the reality and associated feelings of his attack. Reid stood up and moved to stand over Hotch. “How’d he get you down, Hotch? We all saw the gash on your head so I’m guessing he struck you with a gun. Yours or his?”

Hotch looked up. “His.” Despite a tightening in his muscles that seemed to want to pull him up to his feet the man stayed seated on the floor. He looked down at the floor when he spoke again. “Or maybe it was his mask..." Both were hard, cold, metal so it was hard to tell even now. "First he hit me and, as I went for my nearest gun, he kicked me hard enough that I fell out of its reach. Then he pistol-whipped me.” 

Even now, recalling the events, Hotch was surprised how quickly Foyet turned himself from the slender, unathletic, unassuming recluse into the skilled intruder with a powerful build and enough strength to put a seasoned agent on his back in under a minute.

“And then he stabbed you?” Reid asked all his questions as if he might already know, but gently. Gently just as Hotch had taught him when interviewing a victim or witness that was holding out, but the team didn’t want to upset. It was the first time Reid both hoped and feared he was doing it perfectly.

The tightening in Hotch’s muscles locked his jaw, which was for the best as his stomach lurched a little in the memories. It wasn't just the memory of searing pain as the knife cut through flesh, tissue, and muscle. It wasn't just that being bested by an UNSUB was an incredible blow to his ego or left him with lingering doubts in his abilities as a profiler and agent. Those things weren’t what really stuck with Aaron Hotchner. It was the intimacy with which it was all done and the fact that George Foyet knew exactly how much that would be the thing that stuck with Aaron Hotchner.

“Maybe it would be easier if you took Foyet’s place?” Reid’s voice pulled Hotch from the inner turmoil of memories. “If you...gained, uh, dominance back over your own place.”

“Dominance?” It was the only word Hotch’s ears really caught that really lit up his brain. Like forced.

Reid nodded and knelt down before Hotch to look him in the eye. “He knocked you to the floor, he got you on your back, and made you bleed. He marked you, marked you in his image so that you’d always see him in the mirror, so that anyone who decided to be with you would know he got there first.” He spoke in a near deadpan tone not because he didn’t care, but because he knew this was how Hotch spoke when he thought about what Foyet did to him. “And now he’s going after your family.”

“What is your point?” Hotch snapped, starting to glare.

“He’s going to win.” Reid answered even as Hotch’s glare came full and focused on him. “He’s going to win if you keep this up. Right now all you feel is hate and anger and shame and even those you try and dull with Oxy, alcohol, and avoiding what happened to you. You’re doing what he does, Hotch, and you’re better than that. You need to be better than that, than him, to catch him.”

He’d wanted to knock Reid to the floor and force him to shut his mouth by any means necessary, but as Hotch let the words sink in the anger simmered and new emotions caught him off guard. Fear. Guilt. He looked down as another emotion began to mix in, this one more familiar. Shame. Aaron shifted to stand. “We need to switch positions,” he stated simply.

Reid gave a single nod and moved to stand where Hotch had been not more than a moment before. The two men stood opposite one another in silence for what felt like eternity before Spencer spoke. “Now tell me…act it out.” Reid would do his best to be the Agent Hotchner, to have that stare Hotch must’ve had in facing The Reaper in his own home.

Hotch didn’t want to hurt Reid, but, unable to speak the words, he simply made the moves. A hit to the face that indicated the other to get on on the floor, then a kick, then the strike with the gun. Hotch wasn’t currently suited up for work, he had no gun on hand at the moment, so instead he simply curled his hand to pantomime holding one.

Reid played his part as best he could, made moves to combat the attack as best he imagined Hotch had. Before he even had time to think how Hotch might try to recover from the hit by the gun to get back up and continue the battle a fist pressed into him twice fast and hard even despite their slowing down the moves.

“The knife,” Hotch explained, already on one knee directly next to Reid. “Then I was down."

Reid laid back completely. “What next?” he asked as looked up at Hotch.

Hotch shifted and straddled Reid’s body as best he could recall Foyet doing. From this angle it looked different, felt different. Even though Reid’s face showed no fear, only trust, Hotch felt as if he could lord over the smaller framed man under him. He could do anything. Reid wouldn’t really be able to stop him even without the injuries Hotch himself had sustained at this point in Foyet’s attack. 

Hotch leaned down and in some to create the literal in-your-face intimacy Foyet had. “He spoke.”

Reid felt Hotch on him unlike anyone else had been in his recollection. This was Aaron’s full weight crushing into him, restricting breathing, and creating an intimacy even beyond one in the bedroom. This was intimidating even while being faked, Reid couldn’t imagine what it’d been like in the moment...when it was an madman with a knife instead of a friend working through his pain. 

He wanted to shift some, try to get more comfortable, but he didn’t. Hotch hadn’t been allowed that luxury so Spencer would deny himself it as well. “What did he say?”

“I...told him that you, the team, would kill him and he told me not to speak. That I’d lost a lot of blood and needed my oxygen.” He never had the near perfect recall Reid had, but the words Foyet had spoken to him he could never forget. “He, um...showed me his knife and bragged about how well he knew the human body. Then he stabbed me again.”

“Where?” Reid’s croaked out from a mix of Hotch on his chest and what seemed like a strange lack of oxygen in the room.

This time Aaron had to think. He moved the top half of his body back a little as he tried to remember where the next source of the piercing, tearing, pain had come from on his body. As he did he looked over Reid’s body and wondered if Foyet had seen him this way...no, Foyet had seen him in a suit drenched in blood, not in a sweater vest. 

“Here,” he recalled finally, this time using two of his fingers to slowly poke Reid’s body.

Muscles rippled automatically, as if fighting the pressure of the false knife, even as Reid tried to stay still for the reenactment. “Were you able to try and fight him off?”

“I was too weak,” Hotch confessed softly before pressing on. “Then he showed me his scars.”

The last part threw Reid so that he actually made a face. “What?” He understood the most basic definitions of the words, yes, but not exactly what Hotch meant. Was the man using some sort of euphemism or metaphor?

Hotch stood up and, as Reid went to sit up, he spoke. “No, don’t get up.” 

Reid laid back down a little warily. 

“He...he’d asked if I wanted to see his scars.” Whether Hotch was retracing Foyet’s strutting footsteps intentionally or coincidentally not even Hotch could be sure. “He removed his gloves and jacket, he got up, turned on the light, here, and then...he removed his shirt.” Hotch looked down to see Reid looking up at him. “He left the knife on my chest. It was right there, on me, I couldn’t even get the strength to grab it.”

“You were bleeding out,” Reid countered, using logic to remind Hotch one of the many ways this wasn’t his fault. “And, uh, even if you had it’s deeply unlikely he wouldn’t have noticed immediately and, when he did...who knows.” Even those like Foyet, patient and calculating, could snap when things don’t go their way. “So...did he stay where you are now? By your head without his shirt.”

“No,” Hotch answered simply. 

He’d listened to Reid’s counters concerning the knife, but had nothing to say on them. Logically he knew Reid was right, at that point he could barely keep his eyes open, keep breathing, but logic was still being overruled by deep-seated feelings of not having been strong enough, good enough, to defeat The Reaper. 

“He came to stand before me, over me.” Despite trying to distance himself from the event Aaron’s voice wavered as he recalled what happened. “He, um, he spread his arms open, asked me if I liked his scars, and then told me mine would look just like his. I finally got the strength to speak and warned him my team would find him.”

“And then?”

“...He grew angry, annoyed, and dropped back on top of me,” Hotch replied as he went to sit beside Reid this time, rather than resume Foyet’s position on top. “Claimed the team didn’t find him until he wanted to be found, that I wasn’t in charge at the moment and shouldn’t be foolish. And th-then he told me to relax.”

“Relax?” Reid didn’t move from his supine position on the floor.

“Your body will go numb and...and it goes in so much easier if you relax,” Aaron recited the words before shutting his eyes as if that would take him somewhere else, somewhere safe, while he recalled these details. “He stabbed again. Slower. The hard part is not passing out from the pain.”

Reid wondered if this was how other people remembered things, shutting their eyes and blocking out everything around them...or if Hotch was just reaching for an escape in the darkness behind his own lids. He watched carefully, unsure which words were Aaron’s and which were Foyet’s.

Aaron Hotchner found no relief, his eyes opened to ensure he was still sitting on his floor looking at Spencer and not laying on it with a psychopath hovering over him. It took him a moment to blink himself into full reality and focus in on his companion. “Then he spoke on how we profile those who use knives.”

“That they’re impotent and stabbing is their form of sex,” Reid blurted out without thinking. Without considering what Foyet had been suggesting in bringing that up and how many ways things could’ve gotten infinitely worse for Hotch after that. The moment it clicked Reid sat up, wide and wet eyed, for his friend. “Aaron?”

Hotch’s eyes glazed so that he was unable to truly make out Reid. “He asked if...if this would change the way I profiled and stabbed me once more.”

“Aaron.”

Hotch cast his eyes down, at the floor. “After the Garner case Elle commented that...that there were times when she could...still...feel his fingers inside of her...her wound,” he looked back up to Spencer, his eyes watered. “I never understood that, not really. Not until now.”

“His...” Spencer was tentative, his voice barely above a whisper. “...Fingers?”

“Him.” Aaron’s wasn’t. It was hard, cold, and final. He closed his eyes some, pinched the bridge of his nose a touch, before letting his fingers run down under his eyes to catch any possible tears that might run.

Spencer bit his lip hard to keep his own emotions under control. Despite all the reactions he wanted to have – to hold Aaron close and swear to him he was safe now, to get angry and rage against the very thought of George Foyet and what he’d done, to cry – he knew none of those would help right now. “You know this wasn’t your fault, right?” 

Aaron barely moved his shoulders in a shrug. 

“You’re an Alpha-Male, Hotch, and Foy...he just...he knew the affect something like that would have on your psyche.” Not only to rape the man, because that's what it was no matter how one put it, but also to use his knife to create the orifice in which to perform the assault.

There was a long silence, one that seemed to fill the room, then the whole apartment, before Aaron Hotchner finally spoke once again. 

“I want to kill him.” His eyes quickly became focused and dark. “When I find him I’m going to kill him, Spencer.” It never was and never would be a matter of if he found the man. It was when. If it took him his whole life, Hotch would hunt down and kill George Foyet. He could only hope, pray, that Foyet didn’t reach Haley and Jack first.

“Good.” Spencer Reid replied as seriously as Hotch just had. Reid let the silence fill the apartment once again before speaking softly. “It’s going to take time. This, uh, this was just a, uh, start.”

“I know.”

“Did it help at all?”

Hotch paused in thought and then gave a short nod. “I couldn’t talk about it before to anyone. I did with you. That’s something, isn’t it?”

“It is,” Spencer nodded before setting his hand on the floor by Aaron. He didn’t want to touch, to presume that Hotch would want or even accept physical contact after what he’d just spoken about, but Reid did want him to know that he was there for him.

Hotch looked at the hand, the slim hand ending in delicate, almost feminine, fingers. Fingers that held skill and strength just beneath their surface. It made him smile faintly before he looked up into Reid's eyes. “How long did it take you, Spencer? After Henkel, I mean, how long did it take you before you...felt...like yourself.”

“That’s...that’s, uh, not really how it works, Aaron, and I think you know that. The things that happen to us, they all change us. And the more...uh...impactful the event the more we can be changed.” 

Hotch’s smile weakened. 

“The trick isn’t getting back to who you were, the trick is to figure out and accept who you are now. You take your experiences and use them to become someone new, someone better, and the next time you’re confronted with, uh, a potentially life-changing event hopefully you’re even better equipped to handle it.”

“So I’ll never be the same?” What a terrifying and crushing thought for a man who lived his life according to tradition and precedent.

Reid shook his head. “Not really. I mean you’ll always be SSA Aaron Hotchner. Always be a strong leader, a hero, and someone who cares about his family and job and those around him. But now you're also, uh, a man who survived a nightmare, a man who can better identify with the victims he helps, and a man whose will is stronger than, I’m guessing, even he ever expected.” Reid smiled. “And this new Aaron Hotchner he, uh, he’s even more amazing and beautiful than the one I met when I first came to the BAU.”

Hotch smiled almost bashfully at the last part finding himself, even in the midst of all that occurred and was recalled tonight, flattered. “Beautiful?” he asked disbelievingly.

Reid’s face pinked as he shrugged. “I always thought so,” he then grew nervous and began to explain. “I, uh, I don’t, uh...I d-don’t mean just your, uh, looks or anything. I, uh...” he took a deep breath to calm himself so he didn’t stumble over his words, then started again. “Your strength, your unwavering loyalty to your team and family and, uh, your...uh…heart. You don’t always show it, but I know you feel deeply with every case we work, you feel as much as Gideon used to but, uh, you have that, um, that strength that he lost sometime after Adrian Bale and never completely regained. Even now. That’s why, if you keep...uh...confronting what happened, refuse to shy away from it, Foyet won’t stand a chance.” Reid smiled in hopes he was understood.

Reid was. 

“Thank you, Spencer,” Aaron said softly, but strongly and clearly, as he finally settled his hand on top of Spencer’s on the floor. Aaron curled his fingers to hold Spencer’s hand. “For everything.”

***

_"Beauty would save the world." ~ Fyodor Dostoevsky_   



	13. A Bullet and a Twist: Part 1

  
_I say a murder is abstract. You pull the trigger and after that you do not understand anything that happens. ~ Jean-Paul Sartre_

***

Hotch set the bullet on his coffee table and stared at it. This is what was left of Haley. The first love of his life, mother of his child, and the one to whom he promised he would catch Foyet. Before it went bad she’d been his savoir and he did not, could not, repay the favor. This is what was left of Haley. A bullet tainted with her blood, fished out of the innards of the home they'd shared together.

He heaved a sigh and grabbed the bottle by the neck to tip its contents down his throat. Jack was with his aunt, Jessie, at the moment and thank god for that. His son didn’t need to see him like this. He’d been able to stay strong for the boy in the moment, throughout the arrangements made for Haley’s wake and funeral, and after the burial, but something about this made all that strength crumble and fall into a very fine bottle of Scotch.

So much for sobriety and clean living.

The bullet before him made it all officially over. There wasn’t anything that could be changed, no way to go back and save her, and it wasn’t all just some horrible nightmare. It was final. Case closed. Wife buried. Defeated. Drunk. Addiction gnawing at his insides.

Hotch took increased long, large, swallows of the liquor before the urge to throw the bottle at the wall forced him to set it down on the table once again.

He picked up the distorted bit of metal wondering if it’d fit in his own gun before dropping it on the table as he got up and went for the phone. His fingers shook with the phone as he hit 1 and then pounded the rest fast and hard. 7-0-3...he called the first, the only, person he could think of that might possibly understand.

The receiver rang and rang and rang, but never picked up. Hotch hit END and paced the floor. Was Reid away from his phone? Was it on mute? Or was he just not answering? Since their reenactment of The Reaper’s attack Hotch had panicked, thrown himself deeper into his hunt for Foyet and distanced himself from everyone. He'd given Reid the cold shoulder. Was Reid doing the same? No, Reid was never like that. Never so petty. Was he?

Hotch felt his body start to tighten in an anxiety that was as different and new as it was disconcerting. He needed to find out why Reid wasn’t answering his phone and he needed to know now. Three more attempts at reaching Reid and two texts without an answer and Hotch’s concern grew to an unusual panic. Maybe Reid was in trouble? Why the fuck else would he ignore his boss for so long?

He threw on his jacket, grabbed his cell and keys, and headed out the door.

***

Reid sat on the couch as he let Ethan pour the drinks. Brandy for him. Jack Daniels for Ethan.

“Thanks again for coming.” Reid said once again.

He still couldn’t believe a single late-night call based in insecurity had been enough to get Ethan to fly over 1,000 miles. Maybe he shouldn’t be, they’d reconnected and grown closer ever since meeting up in New Orleans on the Danlin case and Ethan never had troubles dropping everything when need be, but still.

Ethan gave a laugh from the kitchenette. “Notta problem.” He stepped out into the living room area, drinks in hand, and smiled. “Never a problem when it comes to you, you know that.”

“Still, uh...” Reid’s face reddened a bit.

“I didn’t have to fly all the way out here and we coulda just talked this out over the phone and it was just the thought of a relapse and blah blah blah?” Ethan offered already knowing every possible thing Reid could say to dismiss just how much he needed to see Ethan face-to-face without even knowing it.

Reid’s face turned from rose pink to cherry as Ethan swung his glass to him. “Pretty much.”

Ethan plopped on the opposite side of the couch from Reid leaving room for legs and bare feet to mingle in the center cushion. He drank deep, but calm, of his whiskey. “You don’t have to play that strong-soul stuff with me Reid. You were hurtin’, you needed help.”

“Yeah.”

“Then asking for help was the right thing to do, wasn’t it?”

Reid sipped his glass with a nod. “It was.” Another sip and he sighed. “I’m worried about Hotch. He was already so close to the edge, I was just barely starting to pull him back, and now...” Another sip, another sigh, and a shrug.

“Until he seeks out help all ya can do is let him know you’re there for him. He know that?”

“I think so.”

“Think so?”

“Well he’s been pushing me away so...I mean, I know he knows on some level but, uh, I’m not sure if he’ll know enough to come to me.”

Ethan’s lips curled up into a smile. “Ya really care about this guy, don’t you?”

“Of course, he’s my friend.”

“Nah-uh, he’s more than that.” 

Reid hid his face in an overly long sip of his brandy. 

“Come on Reid, I know you,” Ethan pushed gently with his voice and foot as it gave Reid’s bare ankle a playful poke.

“It’s more complicated than that, Ethan.”

“’Cause he’s your boss?”

“Because he’s…unsure.”

“Ah,” Ethan gave a knowing nod, took another sip of his drink, and then set the glass down. “How deep is he?”

Reid’s brow crooked. “In denial of that...part of him?” Ethan nodded and Reid shrugged. “Enough that pushing him makes it worse. He wants, but isn’t sure it’s...appropriate.”

“Bible-thumper?”

“Not exactly, just conservative.”

Ethan smirked. “On the plus, once ya get ‘em to open up they can be the biggest freaks.”

“That is not helpful,” Reid chuckled with his friend.

“Just hope nothing from last night will, uh, mess with what’s going on with you two.”

Reid smiled. “I don’t see how.”

“So this Aaron guy’s not the jealous-for-no-reason type?”

“Well...uh...”

“Oh that is not encouraging, Reid.” Ethan teased with a smirk.

“No, no, I mean...” Reid sighed out his inability to explain. “I mean, he could be the jealous type, he’s an alpha male type so, you know...”

“Yeah, I know.” Ethan was the same way. The only alpha male not to torment Reid in his youth.

“But, I mean, he has no logical reason to be jealous.”

“Logic doesn’t even enter the equation, Reid. Jealousy, possessiveness, all that stuff is a gut thing. If the big dog feels something of his is bein’ taken he’ll take it back.”

“I think Aaron’s bigger than that.”

Ethan’s smirk grew, he sat up and leaned in closer to Reid. “No one’s bigger than that.”

Reid didn’t have a response. While he had always excelled at logic and reasoning Ethan was the emotions and instincts guy. Reid had learned to read peoples’ faces and bodies, Ethan just knew. Ethan said it was what made them a good pair, they balanced each other out...together they made a good, solid, whole.

The hurried pound caused Reid to almost jump.

“Reid?” The voice on the other side of the door called out.

Ethan smirked, quirked his brow up in interest. “That him?”

Reid nodded as he started to get up from the couch. “Actually, it is.”

“This is gonna be trouble,” Ethan muttered to himself as he grabbed hold of his drink and relaxed back on the couch.

“Hey Hotch,” Reid smiled as he opened the door before getting a good look on Aaron’s face. “Is...is everything all right?”

Hotch had blasted through the streets of Virginia to get to this door, to see this man, and it showed. He was disheveled, without a tie and in rumpled clothing that smelled strongly of booze, as did his breath. “I’m...” only now did all the ways this act could be read into hit him and he was struck mute. 

Mute until he heard movement beyond the door and into the apartment. “You have someone here.” Fucking idiot to think Reid was just sitting by the phone waiting for his next call for support. Spencer wasn’t in trouble, he was entertaining.

Even knowing it was unintentional the accusation behind Hotch’s statement stung Spencer, made him feel almost guilty. “Um...yeah.”

“I should go.”

“Hotch, don’t.”

“You didn’t answer your phone.”

“Excuse me?”

“I called, you didn’t answer, I thought something might’ve happened.” Hotch rattled off the facts just like he would ones in a case. “But, clearly, you’re fine and I’ve interrupted you so I’ll go.” He turned to leave, but was stopped by a hand taking his.

“I’m sorry, I must’ve left my phone on vibrate in my bedroom,” Reid started to pull Hotch back and into the apartment. “Now come on in and you can meet my friend.”

“Don’t do it, don’t do it,” Ethan muttered over and over as if to send the soft message along to Reid’s ears. He heard the door close. With a sigh of knowledge at how this was about to go down Ethan stood up to turn and greet the third party.

“Ethan, this is my boss, Aaron Hotchner,” Reid began to make the introductions aware only of Hotch’s grip tightening on his hand. “Hotch, this is Ethan Bellamy, my friend from, uh, well everywhere really.”

“Hey,” Ethan smiled politely and extended his hand as he headed over. “It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

An awkward-as-ass pleasure.

Hotch let his eyes scan over Ethan a few times trying to find the appeal. He couldn’t. A drinker. An addict. Scruffy and unkempt with a general appearance more suited to an UNSUB than anyone Spencer should socialize with. Aaron hazarded a guess that somewhere on his body Ethan had tattoos and, if the way Ethan held himself was any indication, he was an ex-con of some kind too. Ethan Bellamy was not acceptable to be in Spencer’s company by any standards Aaron had.

“You’re the Ethan Reid talks about?” he questioned, the liquor allowing his true feelings to bubble up in a harsh, unimpressed, tone as he refused the handshake. He refused any touch as he pulled his hand from Reid's grasp.

“Only Ethan he knows.”

Prick was smug too.

“You’re an addict.” Hotch blunted.

Reid's face spoke to his shock, indignation, and annoyance as his words failed him.

“Aren’t we all?” Ethan smirked a little, clearly unbothered by the comment.

Hotch felt his jaw lock into a twitch at the reply. Had Reid actually shared personal information, Hotch’s personal information, with this asshole?

Aaron felt his fingers start to curl into pumps of fists. “This isn’t about all of us, it’s about you. I thought you were supposed to be the one that helped Reid? Is this how you help someone? Get drunk with them?”

“Better than getting drunk alone.”

“What the fuck is that supposed to mean?” Hotch snapped harsh.

He fucking hated this guy. This...Ethan. Hotch hated the words that soothed out his arrogantly smirked lips, the fact he was barefoot along with Reid and what that could imply, and Hotch hated his blasé attitude about everything that was said. Hotch hated that Reid went to him for support and that Reid might’ve ignored his calls in favor of spending time with this SOB.

Ethan opened his mouth to speak, but then thought better of it and flicked his eyes to Reid. “You gonna be alright if I head out?”

He’d stay if Reid didn’t feel safe, but otherwise he imagined his presence was only making things worse at the moment.

“He’ll be fine,” Hotch answered in Reid’s stead, stepping up into Ethan’s personal space as he did.

“You really wanna know what my last comment meant, Mr. Hotchner?”

“Supervisory Special Agent Hotchner.” He corrected, his anger building by the second.

“It meant that a man can smell like a thirty dollar bottle of Jack Daniels or a hundred-thirty dollar bottle of single malt Scotch, he still smells of liquor either way,” Ethan proceeded without noting Hotch’s correction. “Either way you’re still drinking so what ends up really mattering is if you’re sharing drinks between friends to be social or on your own to drown something inside.”

Fuck you!” Hotch took a step forward ready to swing.

Reid stepped between the two. “Hotch can I, uh, speak to you outside.”

“I’m fine.”

“Outside, Hotch. Now.” Reid insisted as he began to guide, push, Hotch back towards the door.

Hotch let him, but turned on Reid the moment they were out in the hall. “That’s your great sponsor on your road to sobriety?!”

“Look, I’m sorry I wasn’t there to answer the phone, Hotch.” Reid chose to ignore Hotch’s question completely. “I promised I’d be there for you if you ever needed anything, especially with your recovery, and I wasn’t. I just...I’m sorry.”

“I don’t need your fucking apologies, Spencer!” Hotch snapped. “Do have any idea how many times I’ve heard ‘I’m sorry’ lately? I’m sorry about your attack, I’m sorry about your wife, I’m sorry for your loss, your situation, your...fucking life!”

When the tears had welled up Hotch couldn’t recall, but they all let loose as he shook in impotent rage now.

Reid looked down, then back up. “I’ll get rid of Ethan so we can talk.”

“I don’t want to see him.” Or, more to the fact, Hotch didn’t want Ethan seeing him. Not like this. Red-faced and tear-streaked babbling like a tantruming child.

“Okay, just...” Reid paused in thought and then continued. “Go down that end of the hall and wait.”

“He’ll see me.”

Reid set his hand on Hotch’s shoulder, moved it up the curvature of the man’s neck. “He won’t, Aaron, I promise, okay? I’ll just promise to call him tomorrow and that’ll be the end of it.”

Hotch felt that deep resignation he’d felt after punching the hotel bathroom wall all those months ago and simply nodded.

If he wasn’t wary of the potential response to them being semi-public Spencer would’ve kissed him as a form of reassurance, but as it was he simply smiled and gave Hotch’s neck a slight rub. “Just wait until he's down the hall and knock, okay?”

Hotch nodded in silence.

"It'll only take a minute or two." Reid promised and stepped back into his apartment.

***

Ethan had already cleaned up the glasses from the coffee table and put his socks and shoes back on. “No worries, Spencer, I’m out.”

“Are we good?”

“Always,” Ethan shrugged out with a smile as he headed over. “You gonna be okay?”

Reid nodded. “He’s just...drunk.”

“And jealous.”

“He’s not jealous, Ethan.”

“You’re cute when you’re oblivious, Spencer." Ethan smirked. "If he’d been any drunker he probably would’ve pissed on your leg to claim you.”

“You’re disgusting,” Reid held back a laugh at the joke.

“Part of my charm,” Ethan chuckled softly before sighing. “Call me if he gets outta hand though, okay?”

“I’ll be fine," he replied with a smile that slipped into worried thoughts.

“What’s wrong?”

“I just...keep feeling like, when he needs me most, I’m going to fail him.”

“You’re gonna be fine,” he assured Reid with an encouraging smile as he set hands to Reid's shoulders just firmly enough that the words carried enough weight to ring true.

“Are you sure?” Reid still wasn't quite convinced.

“You already were there when he needed you most, Spencer, and you got him clean. The rest of this...” Ethan shrugged. “It’s just the extra bonds tying him to the cravings. They’ll always come up, but as long as you keep helping him break them things will be alright.”

“How is it you always know just what to say?” Reid smiled at his closest friend and confidante.

“I’d have made a fantastic profiler, huh?” Ethan smirked causing Reid to chuckle slightly. “Just make sure to gimme a call if you need anything, okay? And definitely tomorrow just so I know you’re good.”

“Sure.” The two began to walk towards the door. “How long are you here again?”

“In Virginia?”

“Yeah.”

Ethan shrugged. “About a week maybe, unless I decide to extend things.” He gave a pause, looking into Reid’s eyes as if trying to discern something in there that was just beyond his reach. “Or you want me to.”

“Thanks again for flying out,” Reid side-stepped the comment not comfortable broaching that subject with Aaron still waiting out in the hall.

“Not a problem. Never a problem when it comes to you, Spencer, you know that.”

Reid walked him the rest of the way to the door and allowed a kiss to his cheek before asking Ethan to not look the other way down the hall (“I know it’s silly, but please”) and promising once again to call tomorrow.

Two minutes passed and then Reid heard the knock at the door. Softer this time, but still somehow hurried and decidedly desperate.

  
_TO BE CONTINUED..._

***

_"And when somebody knows you well, well there's no comfort like that. And when somebody needs you, well there's no drug like that." ~ Heather Nova_  



	14. A Bullet and a Twist: Part 2

  
_And when somebody knows you well, well there's no comfort like that. And when somebody needs you, well there's no drug like that. ~ Heather Nova_

***

Reid opened the door on a man who was entirely different than the one he’d just reassured moments ago. Hotch stood in the doorway a moment staring at Reid in a way that was beyond definition before he made a move startling to both. He stepped up, crushing his lips to Reid's, as he pressed them back into the apartment. The door shut behind them as he continued to walk, stepping out of his shoes along the way. He didn't stop, he kept going, bringing them deeper into the living room, closer to the couch.

Aside from that first, tentative, kiss Reid had always been the instigator of physical contact. He’d been able to read Aaron for his comfort level and made contact only when he knew the other was ready to receive it. It was the way they worked, with Reid taking the reins and Hotch following until his insecurity stopped them. For the first time it was Reid trying to keep up, trying not to simply be mowed down by Hotch. The kisses were broken only to be forced back into being. Tongues sought each other, tasted the booze on one another, and when Aaron caught hold of Spencer’s he sucked with a slight moan before releasing and playing the game again.

The only thing that stopped them was Reid’s knees buckling back onto the couch arm. The kiss was broken and Reid licked the booze-laden saliva from his lips as he looked up at Aaron. Seconds ticked by on the wall clock in his kitchen as he realized he was at a loss for words.

“I know we should talk about it,” Hotch’s voice was a breathless growl. “I don’t want to.”

“Okay.”

“We can...later.”

“Okay.” Reid stated simply as he stood in the little space Hotch had given him. “What, uh...what do you want, Hotch?”

“You.” Hotch spoke in liquor, lust, and jealousy.

Ethan hadn’t been wrong and Reid nodded.

“How about you sit down and we’ll have some coffee first, okay?”

“I don’t want coffee.”

Reid ignored him as he slipped around Hotch headed into the kitchen. “And I don’t want you throwing up on my carpet or in my bed in a few hours.”

“In your bed?”

“I only have the one, Aaron, and you’ll need the comfort with how much you drank.” Reid set up the coffee-maker, poured a tall glass of water, and grabbed two Tylenol. “Here, take these,” he ordered when he reached the now seated Hotch at the couch.

Hotch did as told, chugging the water down as if he’d been deprived of such refreshment for days. As he went to leave and get coffee mugs set up Hotch reached out and caught him by the belt.

“Hotch.”

“Stay.” The hand moved down, grabbed hold of a slender hip. Aaron recalled them both liking that in the hotel. They liked having their hips grabbed, pulled.

Aaron pulled and Spencer stumbled forward, bumped his legs against the cushion Aaron sat on. Even drunk Hotch was at full physical capacity, just his judging of that ability was off.

“Do you like him?” Aaron muttered as he examined a belt loop that had been missed by Spencer.

“Who? Ethan?”

“Yes, Ethan.”

Hotch had never known Reid to miss a belt loop. He’d dressed in a rush. Or lazily. Why?

Spencer felt his heart start to pace itself for growing excitement as Hotch started to finger the loop. “He’s my friend, Aaron, of course I like him.” He felt Aaron’s finger slip into the loop and bit back a heavier breath.

Aaron Hotchner’s other hand grabbed Spencer Reid’s other hip. “As more than a friend?”

Part of Reid wanted to stop this, knew it could go very badly very quickly. Even with the knowledge that the questions weren’t coming from a place of anger or judgment this could all go badly with Hotch’s current state. He was drunk, he was jealous, and he was still very unsure about his own sexuality...so unsure he was still running from it more often than not. “Ethan’s not very good at being more than friends, Aaron.” The other part of Spencer turned fully to face, look down at, Aaron.

“But you’ve fucked him?”

“In the past, yes,” Reid confessed before giving a moan as one of Hotch’s hands made a fast detour to his crotch. “Aaron...” he couldn’t tell if he was warning or encouraging him.

The feeling of Reid’s reaction was fascinating to Hotch. Of course, he'd felt himself get hard, but that wasn’t the same. It wasn’t the same as feeling Haley’s excitement either, something he could really only sense once nude and inside her. A man’s arousal was obvious almost immediately, unavoidable and demanding in its hardness against the hand.

“What...” Hotch licked his lips, felt his body start to heat as the bulge of Reid’s pants grew. “What did you do?”

The question would be difficult without someone palming his cock, but with it Reid found an answer near unattainable. Hell, he found any true words hard to find. He went with a slight, vague, cliché. “What all lovers do.”

What all lovers do. The statement repeated in Aaron’s head. They kiss. They touch. They lick and suck and fuck and come. They say beautiful things to one another and sometimes nasty things. They do all the things he wanted to do with someone; all the things he wanted to know someone wanted to do with him. He wanted to not be alone anymore. He wanted to know he wouldn’t be alone again. Lovers did all the things Aaron wanted to do with Spencer right now.

“Aaron.” The name fell out of Spencer’s mouth again as the palming turned into an outright grope and gentle pulling. He closed his eyes, concentrated on complex equations to keep control, before he felt the heat of breath dampen the fabric of his pants. “Jesus.”

Aaron breathed heavily against the erection he could now not just feel, but see through the thin fabric of Spencer’s pants. He pressed his lips against the straining bulge and heard a loud groan from above him. His name. Spencer was moaning his name. His fingers dug into boney hips a bit more and this time he opened his mouth, let his tongue press again the hardness, as he gave the kiss.

Complex equations were a help no more. Spencer felt his head spin and leaned into Aaron some to grab the back of the couch over his head. The tentative play was too much for him. Being so close and so far to the heat of Aaron’s mouth was dizzyingly frustrating and erotic at the same time. And the fact that Hotch likely had little clue what he was doing only made Spencer want more.

Aaron leaned back just a little as Reid braced over him. He wanted to see more, he wanted to see it all, but something still held him back. He was as unsure he wanted the finality of such a thing, of seeing another man fully aroused before him, as he was sure of his desire for it. Somehow keeping that cloth barrier between his mouth and Spencer’s cock let him keep that barrier between himself and the reality of his feelings.

Reid sensed the hesitation, adjusted some to look down at Hotch. “I...I can leave if you’d rather.” Take matters into his own hands in the bathroom.

Hotch shook his head as his hands moved to Reid’s belt, started to unbuckle it.

“Are you sure?” The last thing Spencer wanted was a great act punctuated with awkwardness and guilt right after.

Aaron nodded. “I want...need...”

“You don’t have to –“ His last ditch protest to give Hotch an out ended in a gasp as a hand dug into now opened khakis and touched him. Bare skin to bare skin.

Spencer was almost as smooth there as he was everywhere else. No roughened patches of skin or pubic hair; it was soft curls of fine hair that covered the base and creamy, ribbed, skin after that.

Aaron felt himself harden fast and furious as his explorative touches pulled moan after moan from the younger man. Haley had never moaned like this. Haley had been quiet, giving only the occasional whimper of enjoyment. That was not the case with Spencer Reid.

His hands clutched the back of the couch hard, nails dug in, and Spencer set every ounce of control into not allowing his hips to buck towards Aaron’s too close mouth. This was better than any and all the late-night and cold-shower fantasies he’d had. Even knowing he might regret this in the morning, feeling guilt over allowing this to get as far as it was going, Spencer couldn’t bring himself to stop it.

Not even as he felt Aaron start to yank the khakis down to his knees and slip a hand into the flap of his boxers.

Aaron felt across the length of the cock getting a cry and near shake from Spencer as he did. It was longer, thicker than he expected from such a slender man, and the tip was wet and sticky. Pre-cum. He let a fingertip brush over the head, collect the liquid, and warily put the finger to his mouth. It was salty and sweet at the same time, but he wasn’t quite sure he liked it. Perhaps he wasn’t quite ready for that just yet?

Spencer’s hips failed him at the direct touch to the too sensitive area and he bucked forward. “Sorry,” he muttered in a pant.

“No,” Aaron replied automatically before his hand returned to its testing strokes. Spencer didn’t have to apologize; the act let Aaron know he enjoyed it. Ironic that Aaron should feel so out of his element and be so sure of his prowess at the same time.

Hard and fast, slow and gentle, a squeeze here, a pump there. Sometimes bare-handed and other times through the fabric of the boxers. Soon Spencer grew more vocal, expressed enjoyment in words, curses, or suggested others ways Aaron could give it to him.

Aaron felt like a student in the most bizarre of classes and found he didn’t mind. He hadn’t been the one taking orders in a long while and to do so was something of a relief. Like the encouragement the orders, being able to understand the huffed out words and moaned directions, given by Spencer made Aaron feel better about his own abilities.

“That’s...it...” Spencer could barely catch his breath as Aaron’s hand gently twisted at the wrist while he stroked. Reid could feel his muscles start to lock up, his sack start to tighten, so that he shook. “I’m...fuck, I’m close!”

As soon as the words released so did the rest of him.

Aaron felt the splatter over his hand and wrist and stilled both. Suddenly he was more than a little unsure again. It seemed rude to get up and run to the bathroom to wash off, but he didn’t much like the sensation of cooling cum on his skin either. He withdrew his hand from Spencer’s boxers, tried to wipe his hand discreetly on the fabric, and felt Reid’s hand take his.

“It’s okay,” Spencer smiled down as he warily stood up. The hold not only reassured Hotch, but helped keep Spencer stable until he let go to grab and do up his pants again. “Stay there, I’ll get you a warm cloth, okay?”

Hotch smiled a little with a nod finding Reid’s sureness calming. So much so that, despite the sticky hand, he found himself able to relax a back little. Able to just think about what he’d done, what he’d gotten Spencer to do.

“Are you okay?,” Reid asked as he grabbed two facecloths from the small utility closet opposite the bathroom

“Yes, I think so.”

Reid turned on the water, began to heat it up before running one of the cloths under. “You don’t regret it, do you?”

“No.” Maybe he should, but he didn’t. Hotch shifted on the couch, finding his still very hard cock starting to discomfort him. This was something he usually took care of almost immediately, privately, not something he sat around with while he chatted with someone else. “It wasn’t why I came here though.”

“I know that, Aaron,” Spencer smiled a touch as he wrung out the excess water and slipped his pants and boxers off to clean himself. At the very least he didn’t want the stains spreading across the two articles of clothing. “You’re not the drunken booty call type.”

“Is Ethan?”

Reid rinsed out the cloth, hung it up when done, and pulled his boxers back up. “Why are you so interested in him, Aaron?”

Aaron shrugged to himself as he shifted, his ache growing. His clean hand went to his arousal, pressing down on it. Not even he wassure if he was trying to hide it or bring relief to it.

“He can be, yes.” Reid gave the answer as he dampened the other cloth for Aaron. “But that wasn’t why he came here either.”

“Then why did he?”

“Because I needed help.”

“Help?”

Reid wrung out the second cloth before folding it once. “I was having cravings and Ethan’s always been my, well, sponsor of sorts. I didn’t think he’d fly all the way out here, but that’s the way he’s always been. Impulsive.” Spencer headed back out to the living room where he caught Hotch practically knuckling his own crotch. He smiled gently, unable to help it. “I can help you with that, if you’d like.”

Aaron stopped immediately, he turned red and looked down shamefully. “Sorry.”

He’d been caught, something that brought back to mind the one time his mother caught him in the shower. It’d been at just the start of his puberty, when he wasn’t even entirely sure what to do with a hard-on himself, and simply found something that made it, made him, feel good. Mother had burst in ranting about Father when she caught sight of just where young Aaron’s hand was. She made a look of utter disgust, then cold rage, and muttered, “just like your father,” before flushing the toilet and causing the water in the shower to scald him.

Spencer sat beside him and took his hand to wash it. “Why?” He moved his head some as he worked to catch Hotch’s eye. “I liked it.”

The words were so strangely foreign Aaron looked up.

“I just thought,” Reid shrugged as he wrapped each finger, one by one, in the cloth to clean them. “You might like me to help.”

Aaron smiled. “Help?” 

Reid smiled back, nodded, as he worked the cloth over Hotch’s wrist. 

“Like that time in the hotel?” That time Spencer had gotten him off through his clothes. That time Aaron still had dreams, wet dreams, about.

Spencer nodded as he set aside the cloth, leaving it on the coffee table for the moment. He reached out to Aaron’s lap, found the man’s arousal immediately. “You don’t need to be embarrassed or ashamed of this, Hotch.” Like in the hotel Spencer began to work his hand against the confined erection. “But, if you’re uncomfortable, you need to let me know, okay? You’re the one in charge here. We do what you want.”

“I want...” Aaron found his breath grow difficult once again. “You.”

“My hand?” Spencer asked as he gave a delicate squeeze. “Or my mouth?”

“Mouth.” Aaron surprised himself. Though never been asked such a question he certainly expected himself to take the less intrusive, less explicit, option.

Spencer only gave a smile in reply as his hands moved to undo Aaron's belt, pull it free of the loops, and then unbutton and unzip the fly. He did it without any hint of hesitation as he slipped from the couch and, on his knees, looked up. “It, uh, might be easier if you, well, took off your pants.” Certainly cleaner and Hotch seemed to have a thing about cleanliness.

Aaron grew only a touch flustered as he moved to stand before Spencer pulled both pants and boxer-briefs down to ankles. Aaron sat back down with a groan of relief as he was no longer painfully restrained.

He was almost aggressively hard, his cock jutting up, tip glistening in drips of pre-release. Hotch has almost gotten himself off with his hand already. It was the closest Reid had ever imagined he’d get to seeing the always professional agent sexually wanton. Reid fell back on three-body problems to keep focus, to keep his own desires in check, before, settled between Aaron’s legs, he took the cock into his mouth.

Aaron was also much less controlled than Spencer had been. Aaron groaned in a voice thickened with arousal as his hips immediately pressed up into the warm, wet, mouth encompassing him. He could already tell he wasn’t going to last very long as Spencer only made a moan and adjusted to his movements. No judgment, no gag, no sudden stopping of the experience.

Spencer relaxed his body and, while not his favorite act, allowed Aaron to fuck his mouth. He allowed Aaron’s cock to hit the back of his throat as Hotch came and Spencer swallowed down the juices that hit so hard he nearly choked on them. Then he pursed his lips and slowly pulled his mouth off, cleaning the member as he went.

***

Because it was too late to talk, because both men were too spent to do so, and because both promised to speak, really speak, in the morning they went to bed. In underwear and tee shirts the two men slept in the same bed.

Sleep took Spencer quickly, as it tended to, while Aaron had more difficulty with it. He’d finally gotten accustomed to sleeping alone again and now half the bed was, once again, taken by another body. A male one at that. It seemed odd to spoon another man even after the things they’d done together so Aaron kept his back to the other, closed his eyes, and hoped to sleep. In the end he couldn’t. Too many things caught his over-active attention and he began to profile the room.

The bed hadn’t been made, only the covers thrown up, which meant either Reid was lazy or had been in it more recently than that morning. Hotch wagered the second and that reminded him of the bared feet of Reid and his friend, of the missed belt loop, of what Ethan seemed to know about him. Had the other two men pillow-talked about him?

He rolled himself into the pillows and mattress to block out the sounds of his own thoughts, but that only made it worse. The bed smelled of Reid and someone else. Ethan.

Aaron gave an annoyed grunt and got out, throwing covers onto the dozing Spencer beside him. He headed to the bathroom, closed the door, and turned on the light. He quickly turned it back off at the pounding in his head and settled down onto the tiles. He sighed.

How the hell had he gotten here? From happy family man to ex-junkie getting jealous that his cock wasn’t the only one getting sucked by his male employee. His parents would be so proud.

What a horrible twist of fate his life had become. Aaron’s chest jolted in a bitter laugh. Fate. That was what Foyet had referred to himself as. What a horrible twist of Foyet.

He needed a drink. A pill.

That bullet.

***

_"So full of artless jealousy is guilt, it spills itself in fearing to be spilt." ~ William Shakespeare, Hamlet_  



	15. Serenity Swallowed

  
_Every man has inside himself a parasitic being who is acting not at all to his advantage. ~ William S Burroughs_

***

Reid awoke in an empty bed and sighed. He wasn’t surprised not to find Hotch beside him, but he had a bad feeling that he wasn’t going to simply be dozing on the couch. Things had gone too strangely last night and seemed to end far too well for it to truly be the end. He pulled himself up to into a sitting position and found some pants and a shirt to toss on before heading out.

Hotch was on the couch still in his underclothes with one leg dangling off and onto the floor and two empty bottles of booze out on the coffee table. Not a surprise. Not even a concern somehow. It wasn’t until the open cabinet door over the stove in the kitchen caught his eye that Reid grew worried. Worried to panicked.

“Oh, god, you didn’t,” he muttered as he ran past Hotch to it. “What did you take, Aaron? What did you take?” He tore through the cabinet that held his supply of meds...everything from Tylenol and cough medicine to extras of his mother’s medications just in case she were ever to visit and forget to them herself.

A quick dash to his room for his cell, calling to Hotch to wake up and only getting a drowsy groan as he did, and Reid returned to the kitchen to line up the bottles so he could examine each as he speed-dialed.

“Pick up, pick up,” Reid muttered into the phone before exclaiming. “Pick up you drunken ass!”

As if on cue the phone clicked to life on the other end. “Too early,” the voice on the other end croaked out.

“Ethan, wake up!” Reid yelled in a panic.

Ethan sat up at the tone, the last time Spencer had this tone was...god, he couldn’t even remember. “What’s wrong?”

“Hotch...Aaron...he took something, I think.”

“What?”

Reid’s heart slammed against his chest and he felt short of breath, like he’d have a panic attack at any moment. This was all his fault. Hotch had come to him for help, to talk, and instead he’d allowed his own desires to get the better of him. “I don’t, I don’t know, Ethan! Something!”

“Call 911, I’m on my way.”

“I can’t!”

Ethan was already up grabbing the nearest clothing available. “What?”

“Call 911.”

“Why not?”

“You know.”

Hotch could lose his job. He could lose his son. The last things that made his life worth living for. After all this wasn’t a suicide attempt, just a new way to relapse because the drug of choice wasn’t an option. Right?

“Look, just try to get him up and talking. Moving, if you can. I’ll be right over.”

Ethan was worried, but not in the least bit surprised or panicked. Aaron was a mess when they met and there were hours between then and now...hours for the tightly wound man to unravel in a number of fantastic ways. He was just relieved it hadn’t been in an aggressive way towards Spencer.

Reid hung up and headed back out to Hotch. “Hotch?” he bent down and shook the man by the shoulder. “Aaron, wake up. Wake up!”

Aaron’s mouth opened and spilled out words Reid could barely catch. "Sleep...Alone...Just...Bit." Then Hotch’s throat made a gagging noise, but whatever would’ve come up was swallowed back down in a grimace.

Reid got a bucket anyway.

He kept Aaron mumbling, groaning, as he went back to the pill bottles. Some pills he eliminated immediately. Hotch would have no reason to take old antibiotics or his mother’s Clozapine. Reid narrowed the field down to the drugstore over-the-counters and his mother’s emergency barbiturates; medicine he only allowed in his place the past year or so and the exact thing he’d nearly taken for himself a few times in his cravings after Haley’s funeral. 

Spencer'd had one of those little pills in his hand when he last called Ethan.

***

Reid kept Hotch muttering for about twenty minutes before the knock finally came to his door. “Hotch, Ethan’s here.” He doubted Hotch heard or understood, even with the grumble of a reply, but Spencer wasn’t going to stop talking as he went to get the door.

Ethan slipped inside and glanced over at Aaron in his still half-dead state of appearance. “You figure out what he took?”

“Um...Seconal, I think.”

“Ah, so he’s not patty-caking around, huh?” Ethan commented simply as he headed over to the other man before looking back at Reid. “Last night didn’t go so well, I take it?”

“I...I don’t know.” It had. Then it didn’t, obviously, and Reid had no idea exactly when the change took place.

Ethan’s brows arched, unsure, but he let the comment go. He knelt down by Hotch’s head and shook him, hard, by the shoulder.

More nonsensical words bubbled up from Aaron before Ethan simply stood and forced him to sit up. “Wake up, Aaron!” Ethan barked as he held Hotch up by the shoulders, shook him a touch. “Come on, open your eyes.”

Aaron heard the voice and, in his muddled mind, vaguely remembered it. He also remembered not liking the man attached to it. “Le’e me alone.”

Ethan turned to Reid. “Get a warm face cloth.”

Reid did as told.

“Wha’d ya take?” Ethan’s attention turned back to Hotch.

Hotch’s eyes opened slowly, with great effort. “Don’t like you.”

Ethan chuckled a touch. “Yeah, well, you sure ain’t my favorite person at the moment either, Aaron.”

His own name hit his ears wrong and suddenly Aaron hunched over and just made the bucket.

“Well, at least the pills came up,” Ethan commented softly to no one in particular.

Reid handed the damp cloth to Ethan upon his return and Ethan immediately set it to the back of Hotch’s neck.

“I’m fine,” Hotch finally groaned out. The pills flying violently out of his system seemed to snap him back into some kind of normalcy.

“What did you take?” Reid asked more cross than relieved. Knowing Hotch was going to be okay allowed his concern to fade into annoyance, anger even, at the stupidity of the act.

“Just...” Hotch waved a hand off at them both. “A sleeping pill or two. I couldn’t sleep.”

“Really? Even after the three plus bottles of booze?” Ethan smirked out as he called bullshit on the answer.

“Well I wasn’t trying to...” Food and bile retched up Aaron’s throat, but he forced it back down in a hard swallow. “To kill myself.”

“Then what was the goal?” Reid asked as he stood over Hotch.

Part of him wanted to take over Ethan’s current comforting role, to rub Hotch’s back and tell him it would all be okay. That he was forgiven, that everyone made mistakes. The other part couldn’t stand to be as close as he already was to Aaron. He’d had enough of this – of this “I’m sorry...It wasn’t intentional...I just wanted a moment’s peace” – bullshit with his mother and Nathan and Gideon and Amanda’s Adam (or was it Adam’s Amanda?) he didn’t need it from Aaron.

“Told you. To sleep.” Hotchner stubbornly insisted.

“You’re better than that.” Reid snapped bitterly with a glare. 

It was Ethan that stayed close when Aaron could hold the contents of his stomach no more. Ethan that rubbed the hung-over, drug-laden, back of the vomiting agent. It was Ethan who encouraged the act with a deep, gentle, voice. And it was Ethan that looked up first at Reid’s words.

“Hey Spencer.”

“What?”

“Can we talk in your room?”

Reid looked away, over to Hotch, and took a deep breath. “Yeah, okay.”

A few more encouraging words to Aaron, and Aaron replying via muttering something akin to “fuck off”, and Ethan stood up and went with Reid to the bedroom. He shut the door behind them.

“Don’t even start, Ethan, I already know what you’re going to say.” Reid lashed out immediately. “And you know what? I don’t want to hear it.”

Ethan smiled faintly. “Good, saves me the effort of havin’ to explain all the ways this isn’t your fault.”

“Ethan.”

“Reid.”

“I...I did something.” Reid muttered, worry taking the place of anger as he passed Ethan.

“Something?” Ethan’s eyebrows went up, he followed Spencer to the bed. “Something’s pretty vague.”

“With Hotch, last night. He...he’d started...it, uh, it’s no excuse, I know and...and he seemed fine and all, but uh...”

“You slept with him?”

“Not exactly.”

Ethan opened his mouth a touch, tucked his tongue into the side of one of his cheeks, and raised his eyebrows a little.

Reid nodded at the signal.

“He was already trashed when he came here, Spencer.”

“Which is why I really should’ve, you know, stopped it. What if...what if he wasn’t, you know, ready, and I just...that just...”

Ethan moved closer. “The shit people do is theirs, not yours.” He set a hand on Spencer’s shoulder with a sigh. “And, honestly, this could’ve still been an accident.”

“How so?” Reid turned hopeful.

“He was already drunk, probably not that clear headed, so maybe Hotch really did just wanna sleep.” It was a stretch to be sure, but Ethan didn’t want Reid beating himself up over this. Over something that he wasn’t responsible for and couldn’t have controlled. “You know addicts, Reid, we think drugs and booze solve everything.”

Reid smiled almost reluctantly at the last bit, knowing it was meant as a joke.

Ethan slipped his arm all the way around Reid’s shoulders and pulled him closer. “Tell you what, I’ll watch Agent Hang-Over and you go grab us all some breakfast.”

“Well, I, uh...I could just make us all some, you know.”

“Nah,” Ethan dug into his pocket with his free hand and pulled out a handful of cash. “I don’t want you doing all that work. Use this, grab some stuff from the pancake house down the road.”

“The one we stopped by yesterday?”

“Yeah,” Ethan smiled as Reid took the money. “Get whatever you think Hotch’ll like.”

“What, uh, what about you?”

“You know what I like, Spencer.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah, I’m sure.”

"Thank you, Ethan."

Ethan shrugged, smirked. "Notta problem. I've dealt with more than my fair share of hung-over folks who don't like me or want me around. What's one more, right?"

Reid gives a small, unsure, laugh.

***

_"Friendship is not for merriment but for stern reproach when friends go astray." ~ Tiruvalluvar_   



	16. Line in the Circle

  
_A circle is the reflection of eternity. It has no beginning and it has no end - and if you put several circles over each other, then you get a spiral. ~ Maynard James Keenan_

***

Hotch’s head pounded hard, incessantly, as his stomach churned up another wave of vomit and bile. He hadn’t vomited this much since his last withdrawals and he was starting to shake with the effort of it all.

During the reprieves he tried to listen in on Reid and Ethan’s conversation from within the bedroom, but all he collected was Ethan’s calm drawl and Reid’s bitter snaps. He wanted to know what they were discussing and why they were doing it so softly. And why did Ethan want it to be private? Was it about him? Or them? And, if them, which them?

When the door opened Reid moved swiftly out first, grabbing up his jacket and keys as he went. He barely looked at Hotch which, he found, stung more than a little.

“Where are you going?” Hotch asked curiously.

“To get us all some food.”

He made a move to get up. “I’ll come with you.”

“No.” Reid almost glared before he took a deep breath to calm himself. “Stay here, I’ll be right back.

Aaron conceded with the order and his own weakened body as he sat back down. He sighed and then darted his eyes to the third man in the room. “What about him?”

Ethan gave a chuckle. “Him is staying right here.”

“I don’t need a babysitter.”

“Clearly, you do,” Reid snapped quickly as he went to the door. “I’ll be back soon enough.” He left without another word.

Hotch watched the door as if he fully expected Reid to return at any moment, though he knew that wouldn’t be the case. Spencer was aggravated so he’d take his time; use the task as a way to cool off. It’d been Hotch himself who’d instructed Reid to put his anger to use on the job so it shouldn’t be a surprise Reid would do the same off the job if it worked.

“How about some coffee?” Ethan offered, making his way into the kitchen. Whether Aaron agreed or not he sure as hell was having some. He’d been woken before 10AM, what Ethan considered to be an ungodly hour, night-owl musician that he was.

“Shouldn’t you wait for Reid’s okay before using his appliances?” Hotch countered.

Ethan gave a chuckle. “It’s coffee, Hotch, not a four course meal, and I know how to use the barista machine.” He’d bought Reid the damn thing.

Even as a boy Reid had run on caffeine. In college other co-eds took their ADD meds and even street drugs; Reid took Mt Dew, Jolt Cola, and coffee with plenty of sugar. Ethan felt he at least ought to experience good coffee at home, break from the swill Reid got from whatever local police station he was at for the BAU's latest case.

“Still, it’s rude.” Hotch insisted stubbornly. He didn’t even know if he really felt that way or just didn’t want to agree with Ethan on anything.

“As rude as almost dying on your friend and coworker’s couch?”

“I wasn’t trying to kill myself!” His own bark made Hotch feel like his head might split in two.

Ethan prepped the espresso maker and stepped back out some to relax against the frame of the kitchen as he examined Hotch. “There are better ways to get yourself to sleep.”

“And I’m sure you’ve tried them all,” Hotch sniped, not even really sure what he was implying.

“I have.” Ethan replied, unbothered by Hotch's tone. Hotch could get as pissy with him as he liked, it wouldn't change Ethan's mind or get him to back off. Like Hotch, Ethan was not one to back down. “It’s why I believe you. Still doesn’t change the fact you coulda died and there are better ways to get to sleep though.” The last part was said as he headed back into the kitchen to make the coffees.

“I don’t want to talk with you about this.”

“You don’t wanna talk to me, period,” Ethan chuckled out.

“Exactly, so just shut the hell up and leave me alone.”

If Hotch thought he had the power, the right, he'd try and kick the man out of the apartment completely. He knew he didn't though. In truth, if anything, Hotch was the guest. Ethan knew his way around, he was comfortable and confident, and Hotch was anything but.

Ethan stayed silent as he worked on the coffee before bringing it out. He set a mug on the coffee table and took the other for himself as he settled into a plush armchair. He slouched slightly in it with his arms on the rests and legs stretched out. He was completely relaxed, but was watching carefully as the supposedly great Aaron Hotchner cringed his way into his first movements for a sip from his mug. Ethan had heard Reid talk of Hotch for years now, virtually idolize him at times...Ethan didn't see it. Maybe it was the drugs, maybe they'd taken their toll on the great unit chief? Drug could do that. Look at Elvis and Jim Morrison before they died.

He watched Hotch sip tentatively, swallow reluctantly, and breathe only after it seemed the liquid was going to stay down. Still Hotch seemed to stiff, tense, unable to relax. Back straight, both hands holding the cup in his lap, and head forward.

“Do you ever just...settle?”

Aaron’s eyes snapped to Ethan’s lazy posture before his head moved slightly to better gain eye contact. “Excuse me?”

“You look like you’re waiting for the nuns to come rap your knuckles.”

“Says the man who plops into a chair and sprawls out like some lazy animal.” (Good God, he sounded like his mother!)

Ethan gave a laugh, sipped his coffee, and pulled himself up straight. “Is this better for you, Aaron?” He leaned in just a touch. “How about this?”

Hotch gave a snort of annoyance bordering on disgust before taking a sip of the coffee he had yet to admit was actually very good. Better than any at the office and likely better than what he could make himself. Another sip to pass the time and avoid the other in the room with him.

“If you coulda gotten Oxy last night, would you have taken it?”

“No.”

“You’re lying.”

The counter is blunt enough that Aaron’s head goes back to face his newest nemesis without his mind's consent. The only other men who’d ever been blunt with him were Gideon and Rossi, but they were his friends and even Gideon had usually used some tact.

“Addicts always go for their drug of choice if it’s available.” Ethan added with a soft smile.

“What would you go for?” It wasn’t a curiosity; it was a deflection of Ethan’s strike.

“Heroin.”

A failed deflection. Ethan had no problem being open about his problems...or this problem, at least. Hotch wasn’t one to give up, he’d poke around more. “You drink too.”

“I do.”

“A lot.”

“More than I should, I’m sure.”

“You don’t know?”

Ethan gave a soft chuckle, took a sip, and sighed. “Even if I confessed to you that I get drunk every night and ended up in the hospital twice from ODs it doesn’t lessen your own problems, Aaron.”

“Did you?”

“End up in the hospital?”

“Yes.”

Ethan nodded. “First when I was 20 and then, again, when I was 23.”

“You knew Reid then?”

“I did.”

“You put him through that?” Disgust tinted Hotch’s voice. He’d done the math; Reid had been about 15 and then 18.

“Just like you are now.”

“He’s an adult now.”

“So that makes it okay?”

“Fuck you.”

Ethan gave a chuckle of amusement. Hotchner sure had a blunt way about him when he got fed up with someone.

“You know it’s a cycle, right?” Ethan spoke up once again after drinking the last drop of coffee he could manage to eek out of his mug. “Sometimes it takes a few go’s to break it completely and, if you’re stressed, if you face a tragedy, relapse is common.”

“Did your parents have drug and alcohol problems?” Hotch asked, ignoring Ethan’s efforts at encouragement or empathy or whatever the hell it was Ethan was trying to give him that he had no interest in taking.

“Yes. Did yours?”

Hotch just stared. Ethan hadn’t been thrown in the slightest, but he was. Completely. He felt his jaw set, lock, until it twitched some.

“You brought up the topic of parents,” Ethan’s smile had left him.

“Forget I did.”

Ethan gave a simple nod of compliance. Parents weren’t his favorite topic either, never had been. That being said... “You’re a parent though, right?”

“I’m not talking about my family with you.” The twitch in the agent’s jaw returned. His late wife and son were off-limits.

“Gotta little boy named Jack, right?”

It was pure rage-fueled adrenaline that got Hotch up on his feet, that kept him up even as his head spun. “My son is not a topic for conversation.” The glare he used was the one he reserved for UNSUBs, for the men and women whose very existence disgusted him.

Ethan set his empty mug down as he stood. “Whaddya think woulda happened if he’d woken up in his little superhero pajamas to see his daddy, barely coherent, passed out on the family couch?” He wasn’t looking for a fight, he was looking for a way to break through to Hotch...Reid mentioned that pointing out the affect the addiction might have on Jack worked before.

“Shut up!”

“Would have told him the same thing you did us? ‘Leave me alone. I don’t like you.’ Would you tell him you’re fine and shoo him away when he asks to play with you?”

Hotch felt almost painful tension start to build up. His fingers curled into fists that clenched rhythmically. He wanted to sit back down, maybe even just curl up in a ball on the floor, but his rage held him wavering in place.

Ethan watched the anger build quickly and knew it went beyond the addiction. He imagined it went beyond even simple protectiveness of his son. It went beyond something that could be discussed in an afternoon. Ethan kept his mouth closed until the pumping of Hotch’s hands slowed to a stop.

“Jack doesn’t have anyone else anymore. Not really.”

"Don't." Hotch warned sternly.

"What? Be honest?" Ethan remained calm, but direct and firm. "You need to find better ways of dealing now, Aaron. For your son."

“I wouldn’t do this with my son around.”

“Because you can control it?”

“Because he’s my son!” Hotch insisted more to himself than Ethan.

“You keep telling yourself that.” Ethan took a single step towards the agent. "Just remember one thing. If you knew about your parents and I knew about mine then, odds are, Jack’ll know about his.” Another step. “Our parents had problems, we have problems, and, if you don’t pull your shit together, your son could end up with these same problems.”

Hotch’s jaw clenched, twitched, once more. His fingers returned to fists.

All that stopped him from acting, from taking a swing or shoving Ethan to the ground and unleashing whatever rage he’d still held from Foyet and everything else he hated, was the sound of footsteps approaching the door. Spencer’s footsteps.

***

_"There seems to be a kind of order in the universe, in the movement of the stars and the turning of the earth and the changing of the seasons, and even in the cycle of human life. But human life itself is almost pure chaos. Everyone takes his stance, asserts his own rights and feelings, mistaking the motives of others, and his own.” ~ Katherine Anne Porter_   



	17. Stand to Crash

  
_Let him who sins when drunk, be punished when sober ~ Kendrick v. Hopkins_

***

Hotch stayed silent, picking at his food, throughout much of the meal Reid brought back for everyone. All three were less talkative and held to general topics of discussion. It reminded Hotch of so many family dinners he’d had as a boy. Everyone was polite, no one was at peace.

Ethan left shortly after the meal, telling Reid he’d keep in touch and would still be around for the rest of the week if the younger man needed anything. His farewell to Hotch came with a slight smirk, but was still filled with genuine best wishes.

Hotch went to work cleaning up the mess he’d left in the living room as Reid cleaned the dining area and kitchen.

“Your friend’s a bit of an asshole,” Hotch grumbled as he tossed an empty liquor bottle into the trash pail under the kitchen sink.

“Yeah, you are.” Reid said without missing a beat.

“Me?” Hotch questioned indignantly.

Reid turned from wiping down the counter and stared at Hotch a moment, then he looked down a touch. “Well, uh, if I showed up at your place drunk and then went on to pop pills from your medicine cabinet...” he looked back up, glared. “What would you call me?”

“I made a mistake.”

“I don’t care, you scared the hell out of me and this isn’t the first time.”

“Reid, I –“

“It was the first time I thought it might be my fault though.”

“Why?”

“Because of last night, Aaron.” Reid confessed almost meekly before taking a breath of courage. “I don’t generally do well in relationships to start, it’s why I don’t, uh, really have many, but I...I care about you.”

“I care for you too,” Hotch replied, unsure where this was going exactly.

“Then...then why did...why did you do that right after we...” He didn’t feel the need to fish the statement.

Hotch was stunned. How had he not considered that? Had he intentionally been thick somehow? “Spencer that...” he shook his head as he tried to shake the words out.

“I know that it wasn’t intentional, completely, but it still felt like a reaction on your part to...us.”

“What I did was a mistake, Spencer, but it was entirely mine. Please don’t think you were the cause.”

The words helped, but not as much as he’d hoped they would because they brought up other questions. Other issues. “Then, uh, what was, exactly?”

“I...” Hotch wanted to be honest, but he wasn’t even sure what the truth was. He knew he’d wanted to sleep, but lacked the reason behind taking prescription drugs rather than a few over-the-counter ones or a glass of warm milk.

“You don’t know, do you?” Reid’s voice broke through Aaron's thoughts sadly.

Hotch shrugged as his head hung down and shook no. He didn't.

Reid just nodded before giving a sigh. “I think, uh...I think you need more help, Hotch. Meetings or, uh, some time away, or something.”

“You’re my help, Spencer,” Hotch said softly. “You know I can’t check in somewhere or have other people find out.”

“I…I can’t do this alone for you anymore.”

Something about the statement hit Hotch wrong. He sneered. “I thought that’s why Ethan was here?”

“No.”

“No? Then what is he here for?”

“Because you’re not the only one who’s struggling, Aaron,” Reid snapped slightly.

“And I bet Ethan has great bedside manner too, doesn’t he?”

Spencer stared at Aaron as he felt his anger build, his emotions become a pressure cooker boiling over. Then he moved past Hotch, out of the kitchen, and went to grab his keys. He came back and stuffed them into Hotch’s hand. “Get out.”

“Excuse me?”

“Consider this your rock bottom, Aaron. Either you’ll fall apart completely or you’ll pick yourself up and be stronger for it, but either way I'm not going to be your lone support beam anymore.”

“I didn’t mean it.” Actually he sort of did.

Reid’s lips thinned out in a forced smile. “I don’t care.”

“I’m sorry.”

“I’m sure you are but, uh, that doesn’t really matter. I mean, uh, my mom was sorry a lot too when I was growing up, you know? Didn’t change anything. And, uh, it's the same with Elle and, Gideon and, uh...and Ethan, once upon a time.”

“I’m not them.”

“You’re sick like them. The diseases are different, sure, but the fact is none of you have any control over it and you just...do things and...and I’m left picking up the pieces every time.”

“Reid –“

“EVERY time!!” Reid’s voice exploded as he shook. He felt his eyes water, but this time he’d let Hotch see. “The worst part is I care about all of you and I know each of you cared about me in some way, but...but never enough to seek help on your own.” He felt the first trickle of moisture roll down his face. “I can’t watch it happen again, Aaron.”

“So...what? This is it? You’re cutting me loose?”

“If I see you under the influence of anything again, I’m going to go to Jessie and Rossi and tell them exactly what’s been going on with your drug use.” Reid’s words marched on without answering.

“Are you out of your fucking mind?!” Hotch snapped in a fury. “I could lose my job. My son! Is that what you want, Reid?”

Reid didn’t blink, he stared back. “You’re going to lose them anyway if you keep doing what you’re doing now, but if I inform others of the problem at least Jack will still have a living parent.”

“Fuck you.”

“Fuck you!” Reid spat back instantly. “Get out of my apartment, Aaron. Now!”

Hotch stood in the kitchen facing his subordinate, his unofficial sponsor, and someone he cared deeply for unsure what to do. It was clear Reid was completely serious about wanting him to leave, but he didn’t want to go. Not under these circumstances. Not like this. That being said staying was likely only going to make things worse between them.

Aaron Hotchner turned on his heel and left. He let the door slam as he exited.

***

Spencer Reid stood in front of the door and listened to the fading footsteps. The footsteps of someone he cared for more than he thought he ever would. They were angry, Aaron's footfalls. As angry as they’d been that time Hotch had charged him when he first hid the Oxy in the hotel. But now they were going away. He’d sent Aaron away.

He took fast, deep, breaths in and slow, short, ones out. Reid nearly sniffled before he went to rub his eyes. Then he rubbed his face almost aggressively before his arm tingled. It was psycho-somatic, he knew that...it was the cravings calling from the blood running in his veins. _Remember how great it felt when your blood carried relief?_ Reid psyched himself out of the thoughts with faster breaths before he went straight for the phone and dialed.

“Seriously?” Ethan’s drawl was just this side of amused. “I’m barely halfway to the hotel.”

“I kicked him out.”

“What?”

“Hotch. I...I kicked him out.”

“How come?”

“I...uh...had to?”

Ethan could tell just from his voice Reid was on shaky ground at best. He softened his tone, grew more serious and directly supportive. “If you had to, you had to.”

“I didn’t want to.”

“Sometimes it’s not about want anymore, Spencer, you know that.”

“Yeah. I know that.” The repeat was almost hollowed of emotion.

“What’s bothering you?”

“What if...what if he gets worse?”

“Then he gets worse.”

“I...I just threw him out, Ethan. He...depended on me, he doesn’t have anyone else, what if he gets worse and ODs or, uh, I just...I can’t...”

Ethan knew what he was afraid of. “Don’t do this to yourself, Spencer, you are not responsible for what he does next. If he needs to crash and burn to get better than that’s what needs to happen.”

“That doesn’t make me feel any better.”

“You jonessing?”

“Yes.”

“Should I drive back?”

The reply was barely a whisper from Reid. “Please.”

***

_"Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength while loving someone deeply gives you courage." ~ Lao Tzu_   



	18. Escape and Burn

  
_We must embrace pain and burn it as fuel for our journey. ~ Kenji Miyazawa_

***

Hotch’s hurt and rage carried him to his car faster than he thought possible. Then it froze him in the car as he warred with the idea of heading back up. Of putting Reid in his place with words and fists...mouth and hands. He acknowledged he had problems, that he needed help, and now Reid was refusing him? Who was he to refuse his superior? Who the fuck was Spencer Reid to tell Aaron Hotchner about control?!

He slipped the key in the ignition then paused and gripped the wheel. He hated Reid. He hated that Reid seemed to be picking an old Vegas friend over him. That Spencer trusted and protected some fuck-friend over his own boss.

He felt the sting of tears.

What the hell was wrong with him? What did he care? Reid wasn’t family, he wasn’t Rossi or Gideon or anyone Hotch ever saw as a mentor. Spencer Reid was just a kid. A kid who’d needed him to bypass his physicals, to pass his firearm’s qualifications, and to save his ass on more than a few occasions.

Aaron hit the steering wheel once, twice, then a third time. The tears slipped in the act, but Hotch began to feel a touch better. Calmed enough to realize it wasn’t Spencer he was truly cross with.

It was that fuck-buddy of Spencer’s Aaron really hated. Ethan. Why was some heroin-addict not even Reid deemed important enough to mention before the Danlin case allowed to comment on all this? Why was he so interested, invested, in what occurred between one Aaron Hotchner and one Spencer Reid? Who was this fuck-up to tell a federal agent about his life?

The rage twisted and burned in Hotch’s gut, pounded in his head, and, for a moment, he thought he might vomit it up. He didn’t. He struck the steering wheel once more before turning to pound his fist into his own seat.

***

Ethan watched from the couch as Reid paced back and forth before him. He noted the non-stop scratching Reid did to his own arm. Spencer had done this before tests and presentations in school, throughout his withdrawals, and when his cravings were at an all time high on the first night Ethan came to Virginia. Everyone had their stress-ticks, Spencer’s had always been some kind of scratching.

Sometimes this was all Reid needed, just to be watched. If he knew he was being watched then he could control the urge for the drugs. His addiction had always been a relatively private issue; he wouldn’t shoot up in front of others. He doubted he really even could. Ethan once jokingly suggested it came from his general social awkwardness...Reid imagined Ethan wasn’t that far off.

“Spencer, you need to relax. You’re gonna give yourself a migraine.”

“No, I’m not.”

“Alright, then you’re gonna give me a migraine.”

Reid didn’t even pause as he gave his best not-amused look. Ethan just smiled back softly.

“I just, um, I can’t stop thinking about, you know, what happened. I mean, uh...” He finally stopped pacing in front of Ethan. Only his hand moved, digging in nails where needles had. “I was...I was the only person he had.”

“Then he needs to get more people.”

“I know, I just...” Reid began to pace once again.

“What about that Rossi fella? Ya said they were close.”

“He wouldn’t admit he had a problem to Rossi.”

Ethan nodded slow and looked up at Spencer. “That why you threatened to tell him?”

“Rossi?”

“Yeah.”

“Yeah.” Reid nodded.

“Ya know, Rossi might already know.”

“If he does he’s not doing anything about it.”

“Maybe he knows Hotch’s gotta fall on his face first?”

“Maybe.”

***

Aaron got in a handful hits before his phone rang. He relaxed on the back of the cushioned seat, took a few deep breaths, then pulled the cell from his jacket pocket to view the caller ID. CAPT USA. It was the most recent coding for Jessie, Jack had picked it. Jack always picked it.

Another deep breath and Aaron answered. “Hello?”

“Hi daddy!” He was downright giggly as he cheered over the phone.

“Hey buddy,” Hotch straightened up in the car as if nervous his son would somehow sense his slump. “Are you having fun at Auntie Jessie’s?”

“Daddy, when you gonna pick me up?”

“What’s wrong?” Hotch started his car.

“Nothing,” Jack replied in that sing-song way children his age do. “I miss you, Daddy, come an’ get me. Please.”

Hotch smiled at the words. Seeing Jack was exactly what he needed. His son’s love was the only constant in his life now, maybe the last one he’d ever get again. “Okay, Jack. Can you put Auntie Jessie on?”

“Okay!”

Hotch took the exchange time to switch his phone to hands-free and start to drive out of the parking garage. He was out onto the street by the time Jessica had the phone.

“Aaron? Hello?”

“Hey, what’s going on? Is everything okay?” Because maybe Jack didn’t want to worry him.

Jessie gave a sigh of a laugh, Hotch always worried. Of course she would never blame him, not ever, but sometimes it was hard. Hard to mourn her sister properly when she immediately had to take Haley’s place. Hard to keep a federal agent’s life running smoothly and still have her own. 

“Yeah, it’s fine, Jack’s just a little impatient today. Woke me up at five this morning he was so excited. If you’re busy it’s fine, a little time at the park and he’ll forget...maybe.” She laughed a touch again. Jack would not forget.

“No, no, it’s fine, I’m already on my way.” Hotch replied as he cleared his throat some.

***

Ethan watched as Spencer’s scratching turned almost vicious, punishing.

“I’ve seen the needle and the damage done,” he edged up on the couch, “a little part of it in everyone.”

It was a game they used to play together as boys. A game to entertain and distract. A game to pass time when Ethan helped Spencer out in driving him and his mother to their doctors’ appointments and a game that kept Ethan’s mind off the latest broken bone or busted lip courtesy his parents that he had to heal from.

“Neil Young’s ‘Needle and the Damage Done’.” Reid gave the source as his hand paused its assault on his arm. Then he gave a barely perceptible smile. “O God, that men should put an enemy in their mouths to steal away their brains. That we should, with joy, pleasance, revel, and applause, transform ourselves into beasts.”

“William Shakespeare’s Othello.” Ethan smiled as he offered Spencer his hand.

Reid took it and finally settled beside Ethan on the couch. For a while he was silent, his head fell back, and it seemed he was finally relaxed. Then the scene between Hotch and him began to play over and over again. He began to scratch his arm again, dug his nails through cloth and into skin. He couldn’t help it; he couldn’t find peace as he carefully dissected each word and gesture. Reid debated on whether or not he’d done the right thing and the cravings followed behind like a nagging schoolyard bully.

Ethan’s hand moved gently, with restrained strength, to Reid’s wrist and grabbed hold. “Stop,” Ethan said as his other hand joined the union and turned Reid’s palm up easily. Ethan kissed the palm.

Spencer’s fingers twitched excitedly under the heat of Ethan's breath.

***

Aaron Hotchner had to pull over three separate times to deal with his nausea. His head throbbed and by the time he arrived at Jessie’s house his clothes were dampened slightly with sweat.

He pulled into the drive beside Jessie’s car, turned off the engine, and looked at himself in the rearview. For the first time he doubted he could pull off the idea that nothing was wrong with him...he looked like shit. Sunglasses on, breath-mint in the mouth, and a quick straightening of the clothes was the best he could do.

He hit the doorbell from the front stoop and listened for activities from inside. The patter of fast, excited, feet mixed in with footfalls that are more calmly paced. Aaron began to smile when he heard the voice of his son calling out in excitement.

“Daddy’s here! Daddy’s here!”

Jack would save him. He would save him the way all children save their parents, unknowingly through their own innocent love.

The door opened and Hotch immediately lifted his son up into a hug.

***

In that first touch Reid felt safer, in the first word he was calmer, and in the first kiss he remembered exactly why Ethan was always so hard to resist.

“Ethan.”

“Mmm?” Another kiss, this one to his cheek.

Reid shivered a little. “Should we be doing this?”

“Don’t know.” Dissecting moral ambiguity was never Ethan’s strong suit...especially if his own desires were at stake. Spencer had, both angrily and amusedly, referred to Ethan as a walking id. “Do you want to?”

It was an unfair question to ask when hands were already slipping under shirts to tease the skin of hips, waist, and stomach. But then Ethan never completely played fair when he really wanted something.

“Yes...” Reid breathed low. “No...maybe...I don’t know.” His body certainly did, more and more with each kiss and touch even as he knew, deep down, this would only be a temporary distraction.

“Yes,” Ethan’s lips quirked into Reid’s neck, pulled back the slightest to nip. “No,” the mouth scowled in feigned seriousness as it worked up to Reid’s now lax jaw. His lips stopped at Reid’s ear, huffed with the utmost care, already in synch with Spencer's breathing. “Maybe so.”

***

Aaron carried his son to the disaster area known as Jessie’s kitchen. Like when they attempted to bake at home Jack had accomplished getting flour, egg, milk, and almost every form of decoration known to man all over the table.

“We made cupcakes!” Jack announced proudly. “Spring cupcakes.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, we got green and pink and blue ones,” Jack began to list all the different colors of frosting and sprinkles he’d used.

Hotch set his son on a chair before he looked to Jessie. “Do you need help cleaning?”

Jessie waved off the offer and shook her head as she did a quick wipe down of the table. “Nope, I’m good, Aaron. Just sit yourself down and I’ll bring you both a cupcake in a minute.”

***

Reid turned his head and found Ethan’s mouth with demanding aggression. It wasn’t possessive like Hotch’s had been to his the night before, but it was still demanding. If he was going to do this he would do it under his terms and for his reasons. He’d wronged Hotch and would let Ethan dole out the punishment. Ethan wouldn’t mind. Not really.

“Make it hurt.” Reid finally broke their lips’ union, took advantage and stripped himself and Ethan of shirts.

Ethan didn’t ask because he knew. That’s the thing with having known someone since childhood, been with them almost since puberty...you just knew.

He knew to push Reid back into the couch and jerk the younger man’s long, curled, hair back until his neck was fully exposed. He knew to let his teeth brush, then bare down. 

Spencer gasped, dug nails into Ethan’s back. The first marks of the night, not the last.

***

Jessie had asked Hotch if he was okay at least five times, by the fourth he almost snapped at her. She wasn’t like Haley who, for the most part, let things slip by under one of Hotch’s all too common “I’m fines”. Jessie kept at Hotch until he switched his story to confessing he was a little under the weather. Her look said she didn’t believe that either, but she wasn’t going to fight him on it.

“If you get called in, just call ahead so I can be sure to be here when you drop Jack off,” Jessie reminded her former brother-in-law as he packed his son into the car.

“I will.” Hotch double checked Jack’s booster seat, then turned and smiled at Jessie. “Thank you again, for everything.” He could not possibly tell her that enough. Not ever.

“It’s not a problem, Aaron, really. You’re family, I’d do anything for you and Jack, you know that.”

Hotch smiled under his sunglasses, through his pounding head and churning stomach. He would’ve hugged her, but he couldn’t imagine how he might smell with his sickness and sans his standard shower. Instead he just waved, got in, and began to drive home fighting his continual discomfort along the way.

“Daddy?” Jack called from the back seat.

“What is it, buddy?”

“Can we nap at home?”

Hotch smiled at the odd question. “Are you tired?”

“No.”

“Then why do you want to nap?” Hotch’s son was never one to take a nap voluntarily.

“Cause, um,” Jack shifted and tried to lean forward. “Cause you look tired,.”

“I look tired?” Aaron glimpsed his son in the rearview and saw nothing but love and trust...and worry.

“Yeah, I think you need a nap.” 

Hotch had always offered to nap with his son if it would get the boy down easier, the boy was doing the same for him now.

Ethan’s words began to play back in the agent’s head: _If you knew about your parents and I knew about mine then, odds are, Jack’ll know about his…if you don’t pull your shit together your son could end up with these same problems._ Ethan was right.

“Then we’ll take a nap when we get home.” Aaron promised his son even as he felt the sting of Ethan’s prediction linger.

God, Hotch fucking hated that guy.

***

Reid shoved Ethan’s pants and boxers down roughly in favor of easy access that he quickly took full advantage of. Ethan wasn’t the only one who didn’t play fair and Spencer knew exactly what he liked.

“Where?” The word was little more than a growl as Ethan thrusted up into Reid’s grip. It was tight, made Ethan think of what it was like being inside Reid...still his favorite place and the only person that felt like home.

“Floor.”

Ethan tugged and tore at the remainders of Spencer’s clothes, tossed them to the side with his and laid his body directly, fully, over that small frame he adored so much. “Not bed?” he questioned with a grind of bodies that caused their breaths to hitch together.

Spencer bit his lip. “Floor.”

A tumble off the couch and some shifts landed them in the center of the apartment exactly where Spencer wanted. Away from the places that held onto the raw memories of Aaron Hotchner, the places that made Spencer question his decisions and reminded him how well Diluadid could feel when clouding his mind.

Spencer rolled onto his stomach, felt his hardened cock press against his belly as it was pinned between himself and the carpeted floor. He pressed down a moment, moved as if to hump the floor, and felt the short bits of fabric sting his skin. He’d get burnt from this; friction would take the top layers of his skin right off. If his knees bared the brunt pain may occur when walking tomorrow. He bent up his knees to ensure it.

Ethan kissed his way up Reid’s back as he draped his body over the other’s. “You sure?” he asked between Spencer’s bared shoulder blades as his hand caressed, then gripped, his ass.

“Fuck me.” Spencer responded simply, heatedly, gruffer than anyone at the BAU would ever suspect he was capable of.

A finger drew its way across Reid’s hole, teased and pressed ever so slightly into the his ass. It elicited a buck back into Ethan as Spencer moaned his arousal. His cock strained to enter, but still Ethan held back, unsure.

“Fuck me, Ethan.”

Was this really what Spencer wanted? No tender kisses or calm touches or words of love. Nothing to make what was about to happen any smoother. Did he really want to just...get fucked?

“Spencer?”

“Fuck me!”

Ethan had held onto the slightest hope that this still, somehow, involved him. Not anymore. This was about Spencer and Aaron and their burns...for drugs, for pain, and for each other.

Spencer was jolted from the force of entry and he gasped out desire in curses. The shock of it obliterated all his other thoughts and he let roughened pleasures take over him.

***

_"Find a place inside where there's joy, and the joy will burn out the pain.” ~ Joseph Campbell_   



	19. Green with Tension

  
_O! beware, my lord, of jealousy; it is the green-ey'd monster which doth mock the meat it feeds on. ~ William Shakespeare, Othello_

***

Reid couldn’t help but be a little excited when JJ mentioned their latest case was taking them to Gretna, Louisiana. It was just a few miles from New Orleans, from Ethan whom he hadn’t seen in about two months. They talked on the phone nearly every day, but it wasn’t the same. Face-to-face time is always far better for building bonds and relationships...assuming that’s what they were doing.

He was the first one on the plane this time and, after he stuffed his go-bag in its usual place, he used the extra time to call Ethan and let him know. He got the general greeting.

“Too early,” in a groan that told Spencer he’d just woken up.

“Don’t you ever get up before noon?”

Ethan laughed in recognition. “Not unless I gotta.” The bed creaked as he sat up. “What’s up?”

“I’m, uh, headed your way again.”

“New Orleans?” The excitement was palpable across the line and picked up in a jolt of Reid’s pulse.

“Gretna.”

“Not far.”

“Approximately 6 miles.”

“9.65606 kilometers.” Ethan countered.

Reid sighed out a laugh. “Show off.” He glanced up and saw the others entering the jet, Hotch with the usual scowl he reserved just for Reid these days. “Uh...so, uh, I’ll call you when I can after we arrive, okay?”

Ethan sensed the tension, assumed the reason, but didn’t worry about it at the moment. “You know how ta get a holda me, later Spencer.”

“Bye.”

Reid ended the call and stuffed the phone in his pocket as everyone made their ways to seats. Hotch gave a glare while the rest just gave sly smiles or curious looks, except for Morgan who immediately slid in beside him.

“Gettin’ yourself a booty call already?” Derek teased with a grin.

“Not exactly” Reid tried not to blush as he smiled.

“Then what, exactly?”

Reid honestly wasn’t sure how to put it. Ethan was more than a booty call, but he wasn’t quite a boyfriend either. Spencer noted Hotch watching him carefully from his seat and shrugged. “Gretna is near New Orleans, I figured I’d try and see my friend, Ethan, again.” Not a lie, maybe not the complete truth.

“That’s the one who dropped out of the FBI, right?” Emily questioned, her gut sure of the connection but brain wanting the confirmation.

“Yeah,” Reid nodded. “We’ve been keeping in touch since the Danlin case. He’s a musician now.”

“Smart move,” Morgan commented as the jet began to taxi.

“Excuse me?” Reid wasn’t sure if he should be insulted on Ethan’s behalf yet or not.

“Musicians still get way more women than federal agents,” Morgan laughed out with a wide grin while Emily shook her head with a chuckle.

Reid could swear Hotch gave a soft snort and maybe it was that, that derisive sound, which pushed him to say what he said next. “You know, uh, maybe you guys could meet him? I know he’s been interested in meeting all of you.”

It wasn’t a lie, but it likely wasn’t the best idea either...especially considering the glare Hotch now threw him.

***

Reid grew to regret his suggestion all the more as Hotch, back in charge, kept the team at the local police station well into the night. He could guess why...there was nothing left to do that night, but the longer they stayed the less likely Reid would be able to contact Ethan. However, Reid knew their team might dismiss any suggestion he made to stop for the night so remained mute.

It was Morgan who spoke up first, with a yawn. “Hotch, man, I don’t think we’re gonna get anything else done tonight. It’s too late to think anymore.”

“And, honestly, if I don’t get something more than potato chips and cola in the next fifteen minutes I’m liable to snap,” Emily added.

Hotch frowned, but conceded. “Very well, we’ll pick up in the morning, but if anyone has anything before then...” he didn’t finish, they all knew.

“Good,” Rossi was up before any of the others. “Now, where’s the nearest open restaurant?”

“I’m not sure about restaurants, but most bars in Louisiana remain open at all times,” Reid chimed in as he immediately went to dial Ethan. There was no doubt he was still up; it was only 10pm.

“I don’t want to drink, genius,” Rossi started before smiling to himself. “On second thought…”

“Stick to places we can eat, Spence,” JJ insisted with the politest of smiles.

“Okay. I, uh, I can even have someone order for us ahead of time and everything.”

“Someone named Ethan?” Emily asked with just the hint of a knowing smile.

“Yeah.”

“Go for it, kid, I’m starved,” Morgan grinned wide.

***

Hotch was two months stone-cold sober. He’d like to say it was because of his son, that it was Jack he’d made all the effort for, but it’d be a lie. Much more of it had to do with proving something to Reid. To prove that he could do it all alone, that he’d never needed Reid at all, or anyone else...that Ethan was wrong about him.

Ethan who met the team out in back of a restaurant on Bourbon Street looking like some secret contact or confidential informant in a black tee shirt and khakis, leaning against an older model red convertible with a lit cigarette between smiling lips. Show off.

Reid hopped out of the SUV and headed towards Ethan before Hotch had a chance to find a place to park. “Did you set up everything?”

“Course.” Ethan tossed his cigarette to the floor and put it out with the tip of his foot. He glanced to the SUVs as they passed to grab parking then turned his attention back to Reid and dropped his voice. “Do they know?”

“About us?”

Ethan nodded. He didn’t want to embarrass Reid if he wanted to keep things private. Meeting people as a friend of a friend was different than meeting them as...whatever he was to Reid at the moment.

Reid shrugged. “Yes and no.” He smiled. “I’m not going to keep you a secret or anything, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

Ethan gave a smirk as he moved in closer. “So that mean I don’t gotta worry ‘bout touching you?”

“You can touch me, Ethan,” he nodded with a slight red tinting of his face. He already had a pretty good idea where Ethan was going to take this.

Ethan’s smirk grew and he pushed in. “How ‘bout kissing you?”

“I don’t see anything wrong with a polite kiss.”

“What good’s a kiss if it’s polite?” Ethan whispered his tease into Spencer’s ear.

Reid felt Ethan’s hand brush the front of his pants and took a step back. “And there it is,” he put a hand to Ethan’s chest to indicate him not to continue. That being said, he laughed with Ethan. “Just remember that I have to work with these people, share rooms with them, so...yeah.”

Ethan nodded, his smile still there. “You’re the boss.”

“And the others don’t know about Hotch so...don’t say anything about all that, okay?”

“Really?" Ethan’s surprise came out in a smirk. Between what he saw and what Reid spoke of in their calls he’d have thought Hotch’s closet door, with all its skeletons, would’ve become crystal clear by now.

Reid nodded quickly. He could hear the SUV doors being opened and closed as the rest of his team began to head over; he didn’t want them catching any of the current conversation.

“Fine.” Even as he said it Ethan saw a suited-up, glowering, Hotch and knew his urge to tease might just overwhelm. He would try to behave, but only after a kiss to Reid’s cheek and smile to the team at large.

It was Prentiss who spoke first as the team reached them. “So you’re the one Reid skipped a plane for?” It was a rough tease, but she wanted to see if he could take it.

Ethan smirked. “And I’m guessin’ you’re the one who suggested I couldn’t take the pressures of the FBI?” He could take it if she could.

Emily could, she laughed. “Touché.”

They laughed and shook hands before Rossi came over to shake Ethan’s hand, then JJ, and Morgan. Hotch hung back in stubborn refusal to acknowledge, let alone touch, him.

“You’re so not what I expected when Reid described you.” Morgan blurted out, unable to stop himself.

Ethan shook Derek's hand with a sly look to a slightly awkwardly smiling Reid before the shake broke and he asked. “What did you expect, Coke-bottle glasses and a pocket protector?”

“Somethin’ like that, yeah,” Morgan confessed with a laugh.

“Genius, yes, nerd not so much.” Ethan laughed out as he began to lead them around the building towards the front.

“So you’re a genius too?” JJ questioned.

“You know how, uh, I say I don’t believe intelligence can be accurately quantified?” Spencer smiled, smirked.

The members of the team gave nods and “Yeahs”...only Hotch remained mute.

“He’s why.”

Ethan laughed and threw his arm around Reid’s shoulders. “He’s just still sore ‘cause I scored higher on the IQ test we took in school.”

“By a point!”

The others laughed.

“So there is someone out there with a higher IQ than Dr Reid?” Rossi commented just this side of interested. He’d known it was possible, of course, but it was rather intriguing to think that two people with IQs that high virtually grew up together.

Ethan turned, walked backwards, with a smile. “Shocking, isn’t it?” He stopped to open the door. "Everyone’s ordered for, drinks and food are waitin’ on your arrival, so after all of you.”

***

Spencer had presumed that Ethan would play the odds and order food that would simply satisfy most people or could be shared by all, but that wasn’t the case. He’d ordered individual meals for each members of the team and they came just moments after every one picked their seats.

Yes, Ethan was showing off. He wanted Spencer’s team, his friends, to like him. They were important people to Reid so Ethan knew their opinions mattered a great deal, just like Gideon’s had. (And he’d done it with Gideon during their brief meeting after his show all those years ago so he had a good feeling he could do it again.) While Ethan fully acknowledged that wasn’t going to happen with Aaron he hoped it would with the rest.

“So, tell us Ethan, what was Spence like as a boy?” JJ asked as she popped another shrimp in her mouth.

Ethan smiled. “Pretty much the same know-it-all he is now with one hell of a competitive streak and the inability to spell chrysanthemum.”

“I was ten and I spelt it fine, I just forgot the first ‘h’.” Spencer countered after a sip of his brandy.

“Which means you spelt it incorrectly.”

“At least I didn’t accidentally get high on cold medicine and antihistamine.” Spencer countered with a sly smile.

The team laughed along with Spencer and Ethan, save for Hotch. Hotch had sat in virtual silence directly opposite Ethan and Spencer throughout the meal, trying not to enjoy his lobster mac 'n' cheese as he watched them carefully. He saw an opportunity and took it. “Accidentally?”

Ethan felt Spencer poke him a warning. Aaron’s question was bait, bait he should not take. But...Ethan took a sip of his Jack Daniels and let an ice cube into his mouth. He slid it back and forth just inside, let it slip across his lips to shine them as he studied Hotch. “What, you’ve never accidentally mixed meds when you shouldn’t have, Agent Hotchner?”

Aaron found the act with the ice obnoxious, something not even his four-year-old son would do at a restaurant.

Ethan’s smirk grew even as Spencer grabbed his leg and dug nails in. “Probably not over a cold, you seem the suck-it-up type when it comes to colds, but maybe...” he noted Aaron was good and distracted so went in for the proverbial kill. His tongue swept the fast shrinking cube to a corner pocket of his mouth to melt away. “Maybe you’ve been so desperate to sleep one night and taken something you shouldn’t have?”

“No.” Aaron stated firmly, too firmly.

Reid’s hand clenched Ethan’s leg and he would’ve punched him if they weren’t still at the table with the rest of the team who was already looking amongst each other unsure about this strange turn.

Ethan looked to the others at the table and decided to laugh it off, expand on his end. “I was about 14 and sick as a dog, I didn’t think about dosage.” Maybe he’d save Hotch’s face and get back in Reid’s good graces.

“Your parents didn’t warn you?” JJ’s mother instinct kicked in.

Hotch watched carefully as Reid suddenly frowned and looked down at his plate. Ethan went to rub the back of his neck. A nervous tick perhaps? But it was something he’d done when Morgan walked behind him to his seat as well. Interesting.

“My parents weren’t always as attentive as they should’ve been,” Ethan answered JJ’s concern with a faint smile.

Spencer looked back up, his grip relaxed and he smiled encouragingly at Ethan as he dropped his hand for Spencer to take. The reassurance was brief though as waiter came up behind the two to refill glasses. This time Ethan almost flinched.

It was just too soon for Ethan to have someone come up behind him like that. He cleared his throat as he stood up, his smile a little more forced than usual. “When I get back I’ll tell ya’ll ‘bout the time your resident genius here set fire to the school’s chem lab.”

“What? No that was –“ Spencer started as the group chuckled.

“Oh we have to hear that one!” Emily insisted.

“When I return,” Ethan smiled. “I promise.”

***

It wasn’t until he had a few moments to himself, hovering over a sink in the men’s room with his hand at his neck, that Ethan felt truly able to breathe again. Those people were dead or jailed now...even if that weren’t true he wasn’t that boy anymore. Still the memories clung stubbornly to him. Everyone had their demons, these were his.

“You don’t like people behind you, do you?” A man’s voice questioned from (where else?) behind him.

Ethan jumped as his eyes shot to the mirror. This time he didn’t smirk; he gave a polite, tense, smile as he let his hand drop to the sink with the other. “With everything you see on your job, can ya blame me, Hotchner?”

“It’s not an self-preservation thing. It’s not even a vigilance thing.” Hotch stated confidently as he moved in closer. “It’s a triggering thing.” He wondered how close he could get before Ethan couldn’t take it and turned. It ended up being only a few more steps and the question. “Was it your father?”

“Thought Reid said ya’ll have a rule about not profiling others on your team?”

“You’re not on my team.”

Ethan stepped forward from the sink. “And you don’t think, by trying your hand with me, you might be working towards him?”

“No.”

“No?” Ethan almost laughed. It was easier to do this, play like the whole thing was fucking comically pathetic than consider the accuracy with which Hotch was attacking.

Hotch tried to maintain his focus, the one that involved dissecting Ethan. “He’d grab you by the back of the neck to keep you still and now, whenever you’re stressed or feel intimidated, you put your hand there as if to protect yourself.” He moved closer, eyes locked to Ethan's. “You want to do it right now, in fact, but you won’t.”

Ethan stepped up, closed the gap in an effort to end the little profiling game Hotch was playing. He was taller than Hotch, not by much but enough that Hotch’s eyes had to move up to maintain contact. “No, I won’t,” Ethan concurred concerning his neck. He wouldn’t give Hotchner the satisfication. “Just like I won’t stand here and let some jealous asshole profile me.”

“I’m not jealous,” Hotch’s tone floundered a touch as nerves seeped in.

“Really?” Ethan’s smirk returned. “Then what’s this all about, Aaron? ‘Cause I’m not an UNSUB or a suspect.”

“You’re an intruder.”

“Am I?”

“Yes.”

“How’s that?”

Hotch opened his mouth to explain, but then he found he couldn’t. He didn’t see the other teammates’ significant others that way. Just Ethan.

“Don’t gotta answer, do ya?” Ethan smirked. “Bet I do though.”

Hotch just waited with a glare.

Time to flip the tables. “I’m with Spencer.”

“So?”

“So you want Spencer.”

“I’m not gay.”

Ethan ticked his head to the side. “That’s not what I said.” There was a difference; it was subtle, but it was there. Though the way Hotch’s defenses flew up tickled...and told Ethan he was more right than wrong.

Hotch tried to sneer off the whole topic. “Well, I don’t...want Spencer.” His stiffened demeanor gave him away.

“No?”

“No.”

“Don’t imagine how amazin’ his mouth would be bobbin’ up and down on your cock from under your little Unit Chief’s desk?” Ethan’s smirk grew wicked, he moved to crowd Hotch as he rubbed suggestiveness in his voice. “Sure make all that paperwork you got a hell of a lot more interesting, wouldn’t it?”

“I don’t imagine anything of the sort.”

Ethan chuckled and moved as close as he’d been to Reid in the parking lot. “So you’re the one on your knees in the fantasy, huh?” He gave Hotch the typical once-over before he smiled. “I can see that. You’re kinda a controller in everyday life so you’d probably wanna give that up in the sack.”

“You’re foul.”

“Funny, Spencer tells me the same thing when we’re together.”

Hotch made a sound of utter disgust and stepped back. “I have no interest in what you two do or say to each other in the bedroom.”

“How about in the living room? Or maybe the kitchen? And then there was that one time on my balcony…” Ethan smiled as if recalling the lovely incident.

“Do you ever just shut the fuck up?” Hotch bristled some.

Ethan pulled his focus back with a smirk. “Sure, when my mouth’s got better things to do. Which reminds me,” he moved to close the gap once again. “I have a tip for you.” He put his arm around Hotch’s shoulders as if they were old buds. “If you really want people to believe that you’ve got no interest in either me or Spencer you might wanna take your eyes off our mouths every once in a while.”

Hotch looked up at Ethan in a mix of disgust, irritation, anger, and just a hint of wariness.

“It was a pleasure talking to you, Aaron, just like always.” Ethan stated with slightly rougher slap to the back than be considered friendly before he turned and left.

Hotch glared after him, he wanted to punch a mirror and have a drink or five, but he didn’t move.

***

Spencer knew the moment Aaron got up things weren’t going to go well. That, only if he were lucky, would both come back without some signs of a physical altercation; Hotch’s fuse was shorter than usual in all things that concerned him and Ethan’s, though long, could carry one hell of an explosion when it reached its end.

When Ethan returned Spencer could tell something was off. His stature was just a touch stiff, his walk swifter than normal, and he made the slightest movements to try and crack his neck. Not good.

Neither was his cocky slide back into his chair, the downing of his Jack, and the order for something else that came with a wink to the waitress. That was all covering and Spencer knew it. It was unlikely anyone else at the table would realize anything was wrong, but Reid did. Ethan’s demons had been stirred, kicked up even more than when he left, and he had begun to teeter.

Spencer reached out to set his hand on Ethan’s leg. Ethan shifted away from the touch as his attention focused in on Emily. The only single female at the table. “Now, Emily, what was that story ya just had to hear?”

“The one about Reid setting fire to the chemistry lab.”

“Ah, right, that’s a good one,” Ethan chuckled out before he started.

When Hotch finally returned Spencer watched him walk and sit stiffly in his chair with the same stature he had after a meeting with Strauss. Discomforted and clearly trying to reassert whatever dominance he might’ve felt he lost in a dressing-down from the higher-ups. ...At least the fight had casualties on both sides, Spencer supposed.

“So we’re sittin’ in Advance Chem., bored out our minds, and I dare Spencer here to go ahead and light one of the little fireballs,” Ethan continued, his smile growing, but neck and shoulders still tightened.

“Should’ve been my first clue not to do it,” Spencer butted in with a laugh, hoping to put Ethan back at ease.

Aaron couldn’t bring himself to look at Reid, Ethan’s words still humming in his ears, but he was able to look at Ethan so now he watched even more carefully than before. Ethan couldn’t have really recovered that quickly, could he? Then Hotch noticed that Ethan’s movements were stiffer now and he had a different, larger, drink in front of him . He was attempting to drink it down. At least Hotch didn't do that, he stuck with his sweet tea.

“But he does it anyway,” Ethan smirked as he continued. “Next thing we know there’s this whoosh of flames, which woulda been fine if Mr. 187 here didn’t then panic and try to blow out the damned thing sending into the other, unlit, ones and then off the tray to light everything else in the room.”

All but Hotch laughed and shook their heads. Hotch smiled a touch, his eyes finally working themselves over to Spencer who smiled back. Then the caught sight of Ethan’s arm as it went around the top of Reid’s chair and his smile vanished. How in the hell could Reid and every one else be so snowed by this guy? Ethan was little more than an arrogant prick who’d been a bad influence on a small boy.

“Seems you’ve had quite the secret checkered past, Reid,” JJ teased a little.

Reid was pinned a moment by Hotch’s fierce look, a look that still held that anger from being kicked out of the house two months again and every perceived slight since. When Spencer felt Ethan’s hand move to his back he was pulled into the present. “I blame Ethan entirely,” Reid smiled.

Ethan laughed and shot a smirk directly, unmistakably, at Hotch. “I blame Spencer’s mouth.”

Hotch had had enough. “We should call it a night.”

“Was it something I said?” Ethan’s chuckled as his eyes moved up to Hotch’s.

“No,” Aaron snapped as he stood and glared down at Ethan. “I’m afraid we just don’t have the luxury of being able to stay up and sleep in late.”

“Well if ya gotta go,” Ethan began to stand up with the rest at the table. “Ya gotta go.”

“So we should call for the check,” Hotch pressed as he raised his hand at the nearest server.

“Don’t worry, I got it,” Ethan countered simply.

The team, Reid included, looked to Hotch for the volley back.

“Fine.” Hotch clipped before heading out. If the jackass wanted to show off and cover everyone’s bill that was fine by him.

The rest of the team gave more pleasant, but no less awkward, replies before giving Spencer a moment alone with his friend.

Ethan laughed as he signaled to the waitress for the check. “Ya know, I really don’t think Hotch wants to be my friend.”

“What happened in the bathroom?” Spencer asked softly.

“Nothing.” Nothing Ethan wanted to end this dinner thinking about as his hand went to his neck on instinct. “It’s not important.”

“Ethan.”

“I’m not talkin’ about this right now, Spencer.”

“Later?”

Ethan just shrugged.

“Sorry,” Reid said softly. He felt responsible for this, for all of this. He should’ve just ignored Hotch on the plane, should’ve just kept Ethan tucked safely to himself. It was always better, safer, all around when Reid kept those he cared for away from what he did.

“Why? You didn’t do anything.”

“I, uh, I suggested you meet the team knowing how, uh, Hotch might react, behave, with you around.”

“That’s Hotch’s issue, not ours.”

“Ours?”

“Yours?” Ethan offered, suddenly wary he’d pushed something he wasn’t supposed to.

Reid smiled. “Ours.” It sounded nice. He hadn’t been a paired pronoun in years, it was nice to think he was one now with Ethan.

***

_"Anger and jealousy can no more bear to lose sight of their objects than love." ~ George Eliot_   



	20. Triggers of Lust

  
_Lust's passion will be served; it demands, it militates, it tyrannizes. ~ Marquis de Sade_

***

For the first time in two months of cases and travels Hotch divvied up the rooms so that he and Reid shared one. The memories of Ethan, of his words and smirks, were just too much to allow him to leave Reid anywhere but right beside him. With him.

Of course once he had Reid as his roommate he wasn’t quite sure what to do or say next. He unpacked in silence as Reid tossed his bag by the bed he intended to sleep in. It was Reid who spoke first and, unlike Hotch hoped, he was in no mood to beat around the proverbial bush.

“What happened between you and Ethan in the men’s room?”

“Nothing,” Hotch shrugged out as he shut the last of his clothing in a drawer.

“Bullshit!” Reid snapped immediately, surprising even himself.

Hotch turned, as surprised as Reid, despite the appearance of narrowed eyes and furrowed brow. “Excuse me?”

Reid headed over to Hotch, emboldened by anger and frustration more than was wise with Hotch’s most recent treatment of him. “I said bullshit,” he glared at Aaron. “What happened? What did you say?”

“Why do you assume I said something?”

“Oh I’m sure Ethan said things too, but I’m asking you.”

“That so?”

Reid moved closer. “What did you say to Ethan, Aaron?” 

Hotch stayed mute, so Reid switched tactics. 

“Why did you make me your roommate?”

“I don’t know.”

“Yes, you do.” Reid dropped his voice soft and insistent.

***

Ethan gave his credit card to the waitress and waited until she came back before flashing her a few folded up hundreds. “Heloise, right?” The heavily tanned woman smiled in what he took as confirmation. “Here’s your tip, Heloise.”

“Kinda high, in’it?” she asked in a thick Cajun accent even as she took the cash.

“Don’t worry ‘bout that,” Ethan picked up his Southern with his smirk. “Ya earned it, darlin’.”

“’Ow’d I do dat?”

“Bein’ yourself and puttin’ up with me and all my friends tonight.”

“Ya’ll were lovely.”

“Ah, not me, I’m a scoundrel,” Ethan said with a faux seriousness that caused her to laugh.

“’Andsome one.”

“Think so?” She nodded and he smiled. “When you get off?”

“When ya git me off,” Heloise The Waitress teased boldly causing Ethan to laugh aloud.

***

Reid knew he kissed first, but that was it.

He couldn’t recall how Hotch’s jacket ended up on the floor or his shirt lost the top buttons even though his tie stayed around his neck. It was just a blur of movement where things suddenly happened, seemingly on their own.

For the first time Hotch didn’t care that he didn’t know what he was doing. He just...wanted. If Ethan could act on impulse then so he could, and he could do it better. His hands fumbled to untuck Reid’s shirt and then grew distracted by a waist they could control Spencer by. Aaron gripped, pulled, and pushed as his kisses grew ever more demanding and aggressive.

Spencer complied; he complied all the way to the hotel mattress that bounced him a little when he landed on it. Before he got more than an “Aar –“ out Hotch’s lips were claiming his in something that might’ve been a kiss if he didn’t feel the piercing of teeth and taste of blood-metal.

Aaron’s red tie signaled the warning to Spencer. Spencer countered by using skilled hands to pull it apart and toss it aside.

***

The drive was short, but Ethan had always been skilled in multitasking and she was wet and ready by the time they reached the door to his place. And, by the time they reached the other side of the door, Ethan had her pinned up against it.

Ethan loved Spencer, but he needed a woman now. He needed his hands to lift a gauze skirt and rest it on childbearing hips so his fingers could slip up into thighs with teardrops of excitement on them.

“Ah cher,” Heloise moaned as she pulled and twisted Ethan’s shirt; reached under and felt stomach that still held loosely to what was a tight six pack in his twenties.

His mouth moved down lips, neck, and collarbone to take in breast through her shirt and bra. It wasn’t enough, those demons were still growling cruelly from behind him. Ethan started to maneuver her thong from around those rounded hips he appreciated so much at the moment.

***

Friction of bodies and fabric caused both men to harden...to pant and moan and shiver and sweat. Spencer grabbed Aaron by the tuffs of black hair he had as he pressed into each grinding movement made. He shouldn’t do this, but bodies can’t always be controlled and the two fed off each other.

Aaron’s hips moved the only way they knew how in this position...in harsh, needy, thrusts. A hand moved up and grabbed Reid’s hair; fisted it as it'd done when it was Haley’s hair darkening in the heats of passion during their years of happy marriage.

Spencer’s hands went to Hotch’s belt first.

“Do yours,” Aaron ordered into his mouth.

***

Ethan played. He knew he shouldn’t, not if he really wanted a relationship, but those two facts weren’t exactly connecting in his brain at the moment. Right now all he could think was how much he wanted to get this woman on her back screaming his name. It was these thoughts that brought Ethan and Heloise crashing into his bedroom, his fingers already sticky sweet from her cunt.

Boney, tanned, hands undid his belt and fly easily before grabbing his erection. Heloise smiled wickedly at the guttural sound that escaped his throat.

It took all levels of his will for Ethan to pull away with the whisper. “Rubber.” If he was going to fuck around he’d at least have the decency to not risk bringing anything back to Spencer...or knocking up a waitress.

Lips pressed open-mouthed kisses to every inch they could reach as the man shifted and stretched to the bedside table drawer. Teeth scraped lightly over ribs as hands pushed down his opened khakis and boxers.

Ethan smirked, then groaned, as the lips found the scar just above his right hip.

***

Aaron shoved and yanked Reid’s pants down until they hit ankles, then his lust raged up again. He ignored the rest of the task in favor of pressing his lips to skin new to him...Spencer’s stomach. The gasp that he was rewarded with spurred him on.

His lips explored jutting ribs and soft flanks, skin so soft he thought he’d bruise it with kisses alone. When Aaron's lips passed over his navel, he felt muscles he didn’t know Reid had ripple out a moan deeper than he expected. So deep it nearly startled him, froze the hand that’d been headed down into Reid’s boxers. Yet the freeze was only momentary as a whimper followed and Aaron felt reassured that it was Spencer Reid he was with. The Spencer Reid he hadn't been able to stop thinking about for two months. His Spencer Reid that his own pride had kept him from.

***

Heloise gasped with an arch as Ethan slid in deep. He’d nearly forgotten how different a woman could feel and sound, how smooth they were to lay over save for those lovely breasts that could act as pillows and how soft their moans, even deep-throated growls, could be. How a woman would hook damp thighs up around you so that, hours later, you still smell of their sex.

He twisted slightly to take a breast into his mouth, let his tongue play with the hardened nipple as he sucked, pinched, and pulled between teeth while he moved inside her. It wasn’t until she began to squirm under him that he released with a smirk. He dived for the other as she hissed out.

***

Spencer shared Aaron’s hesitation, but for a very different reason. Even knowing Ethan, knowing his tendency to fall into bed with the nearest pretty thing with tits when stressed, he felt guilt start to bubble up. Two wrongs don’t make a right, as the saying goes. He should stop this. He should stop Aaron. He should...

“Fuck, yes,” the words fell out Spencer’s mouth in a gasp as a warm, strong, hand grabbed hold of his cock and began to stroke. The movements were only a little surer than the first time Aaron used his hand, but that little bit made a difference. The difference that kept Reid from second guessing this, from recounting all the potential fall-outs of this tryst. “Faster,” he requested with an arch of his back.

The feel was familiar to Aaron and he could recall some of the things Spencer liked previously this time. He could work curses, cries, and even bucks much easier. He loved it; he loved having the ability to get another to writhe like Reid was writhing. He was the cause of Reid's pleasure, of Reid's hard, throbbing, member, and of Reid's gasps and pants. It felt good. Right, almost. Aaron twisted his hand over the slick head on a down-stroke and the movement caused the boxers to slide away.

Aaron had never paid much attention to his own cock, not since puberty anyway, but he paid attention to Spencer’s. It was thick and straight (though swung a little from the break free) and long, but not red. More pink, pink with small blue designs where veins carried blood to heat and swell. The tip was smooth and round save for the small slit that leaked that clear fluid he’d first tasted in Reid’s living room.

This was not the time for tentative tastings though; this was the time to take the plunge. Aaron wrapped his lips around the head of Spencer’s cock and gave light suck. He got a pure cry of pleasure in reply. That was his Spencer. HIS.

***

The first time Heloise touched the back of Ethan’s neck he just maneuvered out of the touch, got her hand back to his hair. The second time she dug nails in and he tried to ignore it, but ended up so tense he had to shift out of the hold or risk losing his hard-on.

Normally this wasn’t a problem for him with women, ironically with women having the back of his neck touched tended to feel good. Maybe because their hands were softer, their touch was more playful, or because they were generally underneath him when it happened. The only man who could even come close to touching the back of Ethan's neck without getting his arm broken was Spencer and Spencer, bless him, almost never did the act to start.

Yet tonight it was a problem. After the mini-profile Agent Hotchner gave him Ethan didn’t want to be touched there at all. Not by anyone. Not while he could still feel those dark shadows of...

He grunted out a curse as he felt Heloise’s hand where it shouldn’t be a third time. It caused his pace to turn driving, aggressive, punishing almost.

Her moans turned to gasps and strange sounds like caterwauling. She was close, she was going on instincts now, and her grip on him tightened.

So was Ethan as he grabbed her hand and, this time, used his to keep it pinned to the bed. The act caused her nails to dig into his ass and scratch their way up his lower back as they creaked the bed in their synched thrusts and bucks.

She cursed in another language as Ethan felt her cunt turn into a vice, holding him deep to milk his orgasm from him. And milk it did.

His balls sucked up into him and his teeth bore down where throat met chest on Heloise's tanned skin as he came.

What had started as a distraction from Hotch’s words had finished as a chore because of them. 

Fucking SSA Aaron Hotchner.

***

Aaron knelt between Spencer’s quaking legs at the end of the bed as he suckled. His tongue moved on its own to collect that strange tasting pre-cum and he swallowed it down along with his own spit. This time he didn’t mind the taste, it didn’t bother him at all.

“Fuck...more,” the gasping command came with a lifting of hips from Spencer.

Aaron took the risk, opened wider and took in more. His lips moved over ridges and divots and his tongue tasted the man that Spencer truly was. A heated mix of sweat and pheromones and pre-cum. He moaned out with Reid as he moved a hand down his pants to knead his own hardening cock.

Spencer sat up, braced his hands behind him to remain upright, because he needed to see this. Needed to watch Aaron’s mouth, those tight, thin, lips of his superior, slip and slide over his first inch or two. It was an amazing fucking sight that released another groan from deep within Spencer’s diaphragm, which bubbled out as cousin to an outright growl.

Aaron felt long fingers splay over the top of his head, then curl deep into his scalp. He moaned as his moved his own hand faster and his boxer-briefs began to stick to him slightly.

“That’s right...” Reid’s voice struck Hotch’s ears deep and harsh and arousing. “Suck me off. Make me cum.” He was so fucking close he could almost taste it.

_So you’re the one on your knees in the fantasy..._ , the words pushed in suddenly. Uninvited. They set whatever pace Aaron had right off track and he pulled his mouth off Spencer’s dick completely. No. Ethan would not be right about him.

Spencer frowned in concern that he’d pushed it all too far. Not that there was need for concern, he knew things had gone too far. Far too far. He opened his mouth to call the night off, but got shoved back onto the bed instead.

Aaron mounted immediately; let his pants grow marked with the fluids lingering on Reid’s cock as his hands tore feverishly at shirt buttons.

Fine fabric rubbed its way across the underside of Spencer's length and sent an unexpected thrill through his whole body. His sack tightened and he cursed loud as he ruined the front of Hotch’s suit pants completely.

As quickly as his orgasm threatened to come at the feeling of Spencer’s release over his pants and bare stomach it left. It left as Aaron caught sight of the deep red and purple bruise in the shape of a mouth tucked back into the slope where Spencer’s neck met his shoulder. Spencer had already been marked and Aaron knew just by whom.

“Fuck!” Aaron snapped in near rage as he punched back on the mattress to stand back up. Without another word he turned, grabbed clothing out of the drawers, and headed into the bathroom.

As thoroughly as Ethan and his words might've pushed Aaron to act, they'd also stopped him brutally. Aaron Hotchner wanted Spencer Reid, but he wasn't one to share or become "the other man". 

Fucking Ethan Bellamy.

***

“Wanna bump?” Heloise asked as she lounged on Ethan’s couch in her ruined skirt.

Ethan glanced over from his mini-bar and saw the white power all lined up for the taking. He shrugged as he headed over with their drinks; Gin and tonic for her, Jack and Coke for him.

She finished her line and smiled as she took her glass and sipped. “Good stuff. Pure.”

“Sure,” Ethan sighed out. "Why not?" Cocaine was never his issue, heroine was, and he might as well get something out of the night.

***

_"Only a struggle twists sentimentality and lust together into love." ~ E. M. Forster_   



	21. Apathy as Disguise: Part 1

  
_I have a very strong feeling that the opposite of love is not hate — it's apathy. It's not giving a damn. ~ Leo Buscaglia_

***

Hotch shook as he paced the tiny hotel bathroom. Then he stopped and looked in the mirror. His breathing stayed labored as the fine sheen of sweat coating his body cooled. The cum, Spencer’s cum, cooled and dried and crusted on his stomach and pants. They were ruined inside and out, sticky and white-stained, with marks of passion from both of them.

He could still smell Spencer; he could smell him all over, feel his cock in his mouth, and taste him on his tongue. He seemed to coat his insides now and Aaron could no longer just pretend nothing had happened. There was no stepping out of the room and crawling into bed like it was any other night.

What had been erotic moments before now disgusted the agent, almost made him sick to his stomach. Spencer was a teammate, a subordinate...he was not what a man like SSA Aaron Hotchner should want. Spencer Reid was not what should make him hard and jealous and petty and desirous and angry and confused...he should not be losing control like this over Dr Spencer Reid.

Aaron stripped and tossed the soiled clothes into the corner. He turned on the faucet and rinsed his mouth out, but it was no use. The shames were still there just as much as the thrills.

“Fucking Reid,” Hotch grumbled. He wanted a shower, but his instincts favored flight instead so he threw on the clothes he’d grabbed from the drawer. “Fucking Ethan,” he spat before heading out.

He heard Reid’s mouth open, close, then open again. “Hotch, we should –“

“No!” Hotch snapped hard as he grabbed his wallet, keys, and phone. “You’re staying with Morgan starting tomorrow.”

“Aaron...”

Hotch exited the hotel room without another word.

It took until he got into the SUV to realize he didn’t know where to go. Louisiana was not a place Aaron was familiar with and putting something into the GPS made it traceable. But he had to go somewhere...anywhere. He started the vehicle, pulled out of the space, and left the parking garage.

***

Spencer had been stunned at the sudden change in Aaron’s behavior to start, now he was just bewildered. What had gone so horribly wrong so fast? Had Hotch’s reservations kicked in or was it something else? Did something trigger him? Hotch had seemed furious at him.

Reid ran his hands through his hair before he slowly began to gather himself up. He fixed his shirt and boxers and pulled his pants back up as he stood. He scratched his arm on the way into the bathroom.

Had he done, said, something to set the man off? Spencer recalled the change in Aaron’s behavior after the bit of dirty talk; he’d paused and then grown aggressive...had that been it? Maybe the words, the tone of them, had offended Aaron? Emasculated him somehow?

So far Spencer took care to ensure he didn’t do that. That he didn’t make Aaron feel like less of a man by playing up the perception of their roles the few times they'd been sexual. He even avoided the perceived sexuality of the acts themselves. He’d made the effort to always make Aaron feel like he was the one in charge, that it was his decision what, if anything, they did, and that his alpha-male persona remained intact. Clearly, somewhere along the way, Spencer had mis-stepped terribly.

Reid turned the water on in the bathroom sink and splashed his face a few times. He scrubbed and scratched as if in hopes of stimulating his brain. Then he looked up and saw in the mirror what Hotch had seen, the thing that must have offended and frustrated Aaron so. Ethan’s mark was like the man himself, bold.

Spencer had thought Ethan was just being a little playful when he’d given it, but now he saw it for what it was. It was flag, a staked claim, and a challenge. Not to him, to Aaron. It was the last word from whatever tiff they’d had in the bathroom because Ethan always did have to have the last word. Only the possessiveness of it surprised Spencer...Ethan was rarely so jealous, so possessive of him, that he felt the need to assert the closeness of their relationship in this manner.

He began to shift fabric to cover up the hickey, fix the buttons on his shirt, but even hidden it was all he could see. He was sure it was all Aaron saw as well.

***

Aaron felt that raw tingle run up his spine he knew all too well. He’d overcome it the last few months, beaten it back by shear will, and now it seemed to be making up for its losses. The Oxy Urge promised it could make things better, it could erase the frustration and anger and shame Hotch felt at the moment. It could even diminish that desire for Spencer if he took enough. Only It could make everything Hotch had gone through, everything he was going through, and all that negativity he felt wonderfully irrelevant.

Without intent Aaron was back at the Bourbon Street restaurant, back where this night’s troubles started. He parked, sat, turned off the engine, and let silence fill the car. His eyes closed. The urge whispered in his heart and mind. _Give it up, Aaron. You fought the good fight, you deserve this. You deserve to not care for a night. Just one night. Give it up._

Hotch pinched the bridge of his nose a moment as if to muffle or block out the voice. No use. Aaron opened his eyes once again and got out of the car. He kept his head down and eyes averted as he entered the restaurant once more. This time he headed directly for the bar. Aaron sat and started a tab. He would not take Oxy, he could not, so he would drink. Just enough to calm down, to forget, and to not care so damned much. Just enough to drown out the voices in his head and the taste of cock still inside his mouth.

***

Spencer went to his cell, his contacts, and hit SEND to connect. The other line rang...and rang...and rang. “Come on, pick up,” Reid began to mutter and pace. “Pick up pick up pick up.”

The sniffs came first, then the voice. “Hey, Spencer, what’s up? Is something wrong?”

Spencer knew Ethan was covering up something, his relaxed tone was forced and he spoke faster than usual. He probably still had whatever woman he'd brought home with him nearby and, if the sniffs were any indication, they'd snorted something illicit together, but none of that mattered right now. Sick as it was Reid knew his long-time best friend could handle whatever he was doing at the moment, but that wasn't likely to be true of Hotch. “Hotch is...gone.”

“Gone?”

“He, uh...he left.”

“The hotel?

“Yes.” 

Hotch wouldn’t have simply left the immediate area after what happened, but he wouldn’t abandon the team by heading back home either.

There was another deep sniff from Ethan’s end, but his voice came out in its more natural drawl now. “And?”

“What do you mean ‘and’?”

“And what does this have to do with us, Spencer?”

“Look, I uh, I don’t really, um, have time to explain it all right now.”

“Come on, Reid, gimme a reason to care.”

“Ethan,” Spencer sighed out from pure annoyance.

“No, seriously Spencer, why should I care?”

“Be-be-because it’s your fault!”

“How the fuck is it my fault?” Ethan’s voice edged up to irritated.

“Wanna tell me about the hickey?”

He gave a laugh. “Well that didn’t take very long now did it?”

“You knew he’d see it.”

“I played the odds.”

“You need to find him.”

Heloise The Waitress stepped out of the bathroom and Ethan held up a finger to keep her quiet. “Are you serious?”

“If he gets the urge to use again, if he goes looking for a fix, he could put himself in real danger. You should know that better than anyone, Ethan.”

“You gonna play that card now, Reid?”

“You don’t have a cold.” Spencer deadpanned back.

Ethan hung his head and heaved a sigh into the receiver. “Spencer, I...”

“I don’t care about that, Ethan, not right now.”

“But you care about him?”

“He could go searching down the wrong street and get himself hurt or killed.”

“Oh for fuck’s sake!” Ethan had been settled on the couch, but now he was up. “Hotchner’s a grown ass man, a fuckin’ fed, he can handle himself and if he does somethin’ stupid it’s no one’s problem but his own!”

“I’m a fucking fed, Ethan, would you let me wander the city, alone, in the middle of the night?”

“No.” Ethan’s smile came back, touched his voice. “But I like you.”

Spencer’s breath rattled out on the other line, but he didn’t say a word.

“Why are you making me do this?” Ethan’s voice lost its spark. No feigned amusement, no true anger.

“When you ask me for help, how often to I question you on it? How often do I say no?” Spencer’s voice did its best to hold steady, but emotions shook it anyway. “I, uh, I don’t know the city like you do. I...I need you, Ethan. I need your help.”

Ethan stayed silent as the seconds ticked out before he let out another sigh. “That’s not fair, Spencer.”

“Since when did we treat each other fair?”

“Why do you care about this guy so much?”

“He’s lost,” Spencer replied as he sat back down on the bed. “He’s struggling. We both know what that’s like.”

“It’s more than that.”

“Hotch is a good guy, Ethan. He’s a great profiler, a great boss, and a great father. He’s just...hit a rough patch.”

“So what am I, Spencer, a lost cause?”

“That...wasn’t what I meant, Ethan.”

“Hotchner’s got all the potential for greatness, fucking ivy-league love, and I’m just the safety, that it?”

“Ethan, please...”

He wasn’t usually this sensitive, Ethan generally let things slide or laughed them off, but it was all just hitting him wrong. The thought of having to look for this other man, this man who’d already worked his buttons better than most, and the idea Spencer was using their past, their relationship, the care he felt for him, to convince him to do it gnawed at Ethan's heart. Maybe it was the feeling that Spencer was truly picking someone over him. Maybe it was that it was Aaron Hotchner, the closest agent, Spencer was picking Or maybe it was something about Aaron Hotchner himself. Whatever it was Ethan felt ill from it, but he’d do it anyway...for Spencer.

“So do I just...call ya when I find him? Tell him to call you? What?”

“Yeah, uh...both, I guess.”

“Fine.”

“Ethan?”

“What?”

“Thank you.”

Ethan hung up the phone without reply.

***

Aaron took the first Scotch slow, the second and third fast, and slowed down again at the fourth and fifth. None of them helped though, the voice of Oxy still called and he could still taste Spencer and he still cared. He still cared about it all.

He still cared that he’d failed Haley, that he’d failed his son, and lost to Foyet more than he ever won. The drinks didn’t lessen his care for Spencer or the fact that he cared too much about him being marked first and by whom.

Aaron downed the rest of his fifth glass in a single swallow and signaled for another.

“Don’t even think about it,” the voice drawled deep and smooth as its owner slid into the stool beside Hotch.

Aaron’s blood began to boil in recognition before he even shifted his gaze. God he fucking hated this guy. “What do you care?”

Ethan smirked. “I don’t.”

“Then leave me alone.”

“Reid cares.”

Hotch snorted a little. “Didn’t picture you as an errand boy.”

“People do surprising things for those they care for.”

“That’s...touching.”

The bartender set a sixth drink down before Aaron, but Ethan swiped and downed it before he even got his fingers on the glass. “You’re drunk, I’ll drive you back to the hotel. I’m sure Spencer can come and pick up whatever car you drove here.”

“I’m not going anywhere with you.”

Ethan stood. “Get the fuck up before I school you in front of this entire bar, Hotchner.”

Aaron finally twisted the rest of his body to Ethan, his eyes narrowed. “Is that how you care for Spencer? You threaten his boss?”

“I’m done playing nice guy.” He had great patience, but not unlimited, and Hotch had already pushed the limit once today. “Right now all I want is to keep Spencer from stressin’ and if I gotta frog-march his boss outta a bar to do it then I will.”

“You lay a hand on me I’ll have you arrested for assault on a federal agent.”

“Go ahead,” Ethan scoffed. He then leaned into Aaron a little. “Then you can explain why you got into a drunken physical altercation in the middle of a bar with your subordinate’s friend.”

“Lover.”

“Even better.” Ethan almost sneered back as he put money down to cover and close out Hotch’s tab.

Aaron stood up with a glare then turned past Ethan to exit the bar.

Ethan followed.

***

_"Apathy is when you would do nothing for someone. Love is when you would do anything." ~ Anonymous_   



	22. Apathy as Disguise: Part 2

  
_No pleasure is comparable to standing upon the vantage-ground of truth. ~ Francis Bacon_

***

Maybe it was the night in total, maybe it was Spencer’s clear manipulation of him, or maybe it was just the cocaine, but Ethan found his mouth shooting off once in the parking lot.

“That lil’ bite I left on Spencer musta really got under your skin.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Hotch replied curtly.

“No?” Ethan followed the man to his SUV and slipped in to block the driver’s side door. “You really think Reid didn’t call me on it? Considering how he was on the phone I’m gonna guess you flipped your shit, didn’t ya? I told Spencer you were the jealous type, he ain’t even yours and you’re jealous.”

Hotch stared back, but said nothing.

“Ya wanna know what really bothers me, Hotchner?”

“No.”

“It’s that he actually thinks you’re a good option. Can you believe?” Ethan almost snorted his laugh. “His fuckin’ closet-case boss. A man so deep in denial about what he wants that his entire...being is a disguise.”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“But I do, Hotchner, I really do.”

“Get the fuck away from me.” Hotch made an attempt for the door, but Ethan stopped it with a hand to his chest. Aaron grabbed the Ethan’s wrist to pull him out of his way. Problem was, even with his training, he was still very drunk...and Ethan knew how to fight.

He let Hotch have his wrist and used the bond, along with his superior footing, to switch their positions. Ethan shoved Aaron into the SUV slightly as he twisted away from the hold and then slammed his hand next to Hotch's head so that he actually gave a slight flinch.

Aaron didn’t realize that the drinks had effected him so heavily until his head spun as his back hit the car and a brief wave of nausea came with Ethan’s pound on the metal door. He found himself stunned as he looked at Ethan, began to take in the features of his face as he spoke.

“I fucked up a lot with Spencer, I know that, but I’ve always been honest about who I am. You’re too cowardly to even admit that much to yourself. I’ll do anything for him and you’re too weak to even take a single good look in the mirror. How the fuck is that fair? You tell me.”

When he first met Ethan Aaron thought his appearance to be that of some dirty musician, someone who didn’t give a damn, but now he saw that wasn’t the case at all. Everything about him was intentional; from the worn in, but slightly expensive, clothes to the relaxed, appealing, manner in which Ethan moved and settled. The hair was long, yes, but clean (even smelled of shampoo) and facial hair well-groomed to soften a strong jaw. A jaw that led to lips that, when not smiling, were nearly as full as Spencer’s and let out liquor-sweet breaths in soft huffs.

“Your accent’s fake,” Hotch blurted out.

Ethan’s lips thinned out into a smirk, a smile, and then a laugh. “What?”

“It’s fake...your whole persona is.”

“That so?”

“You grew up with Spencer, you should have his accent, but you don’t. You’re a jazz musician, you play small clubs and probably don't make much from them, but you have expensive clothes and keep up on your grooming.”

“You keep this up I’m gonna start thinkin’ you’re hittin’ on me.”

“You disguise yourself, slip into this Southern charmer act, but that’s not who you are.”

“Then tell me, closet-case, who am I?”

“Stop calling me that.”

“What? Closet-case?” Ethan made the cocky smirk Aaron had fast grown to loathe.

Aaron shoved Ethan hard, but he only laughed a touch as he stepped back before stepping forward once again and shoving Aaron right back.

“Com’on, Aaron,” Ethan teased out the man’s first name as he crowded closer, as close as he had in the bathroom. “Straight guys don’t look at other guys the way you do, they don’t get jealous when one of their guy friends has someone in their lives, they don’t watch other guys’ mouths so intensely, and they really, really, don’t let other guys give them blowjobs.”

It was like the bell went off in a boxing round or The Jerry Springer Show. Aaron lunged and swung, Ethan dodged and shoved, and they were at it with very little grace, but more than enough aggression. The two took shots at one another with the brutality of UFC fighters going for the championship and neither seemed all that inclined to call any sort of truce.

The only thing that kept the cops from being called was the head bartender who could sense a fight a mile away and happened to be friendly with Ethan. Along with a few of the staff he went outside and pulled them apart before there was a real scene or any permanent damage done.

Ethan spat out the blood lingering in his mouth and paced as he assured those around him that he was fine and had no intention of continuing the street brawl. Hotch, on the other hand, ignored the thick, red, stream running by his right eye in favor of attempting to shove those holding him back off...with liquor and adrenaline still streaming hard and fast he wanted to go another round or two.

“Hey!” Gil, the bartender, boomed loud enough to finally catch his attention. “Knock it off!”

“He started it!” Aaron blurted out like every kid ever to get into a fight.

“I don’t give a flyin’ fuck who started it, it ends now,” Gil insisted before turning to Ethan. “Ya’ll right, E?”

“Yeah,” Ethan spat out a touch more blood. “Fine.” He was still panting hard and fast, still pacing, but compared to Aaron he was calm.

“Maybe ya oughta head on home?”

“Make sure Hotchner here doesn’t drive, he’s a real light-weight.”

Gil smiled. “Compared to you everyone’s a light-weight.”

Ethan laughed. “Here’s his keys,” Ethan tossed the keys he’d lifted in the midst of the battle to the bartender. “He’s stayin’ at America’s Best Value Inn in Gretna, get ‘im a cab. I’ll call my fella, his friend, let ‘im know what happened and to come pick up the car.”

Hotch lunged before being pushed back once again.

***

Spencer paced outside the hotel as he waited, scratching his arm and chin before harshly rubbing his face as he did. He could barely contain the nervous and angry energy he had. He had asked Ethan to do something very simple, find Aaron, and it ended in a brawl. Spencer’s fingers, his nails, returned to his arm with renewed vigor.

Of course! Of course it ended in a brawl! They were two alpha-males on substances that caused them to behave like children and, lately, neither exactly needed the help being immature. Maybe he should just be lucky the two didn’t seriously hurt each other, but he wasn’t. He was pissed and nervous...nervous both would fall back on old addictions; nervous he’d do the same.

Reid stopped scratching when he felt his nails tear up skin. His hiss melted into the sound of a cab pulling up, but Reid didn’t approach it. He hung back and waited for Aaron to climb out and storm over the best he could in his drunken, slightly beaten, state. Spencer made a point of speaking first.

“Rossi already switched with me so your room’s the same.”

Hotch had been prepared to go off on Reid, but something in Spencer’s tone stopped him. It made him want to apologize. “Reid,” he looked down. “Spencer, you don’t have to switch rooms.”

“No, uh, I really do,” Spencer insisted before he gave a sigh. “We, uh…we should talk.” It wasn’t a request as he went to sit on a bench and Aaron followed. It was something he’d hoped he wouldn’t have to do, but knew he did. He took a deep breath as he shook his head and let Aaron get settled awkwardly beside him. “This...isn’t working.”

“What isn’t working?” Aaron felt his blood slow in his veins; he could barely look up at Reid. The man he’d grown closer to and to care about more than he ever thought possible.

“Whatever this is between us.” Reid bit his lip. “I love working at the BAU, I love being part of this team and working for you, Aaron, but the rest...it, uh...it’s just...” Reid shrugged. “Impossible.”

“So it’s Ethan then?” Hotch’s voice hardened around the edges as he tried not to show just how much that possibility hurt.

“No. I, uh...”

“I’m sorry, Spencer.” The hardness left Aaron swiftly and he hung his head like a child.

Spencer set a hand on Aaron’s back, rubbed a touch. “It’s, uh...it’s not your fault. Not any more than it is mine.” 

He had worked so hard to help Aaron get clean, break the bonds of his addiction, that Spencer hadn’t thought to look out not to become one himself. Reid set his hand back into his own lap. 

“I just, uh, know where this is going and...I don’t think any of us want to cause one another more pain. Sometimes it, uh...it’s best to just step away.”

Maybe that was what all those people who’d left Reid before thought...it was better to just step away. The only difference was this time it was Spencer who was the one taking the needed action. Spencer was the person stepping away and now he realized that it didn't hurt any else on this end.

Aaron took in a deep, ragged, breath. “I want you to know that I...appreciate everything you’ve done for me, Spencer. I know it wasn’t easy.”

“It was worth it though,” Spencer smiled and took one of Aaron’s cut-up hands. “I care about you.”

“I care about you too.” The confession came out soft and low with the gentle squeezing of the hand Spencer held.

“I know.”

The two men shared a brief, sad, smile.

“I want you to stay on the team. I don’t want you to go.”

“I’m not going anywhere, Aaron. Not really.”

“I really fucked this all up, didn’t I?”

Spencer couldn’t stop the slight curling up of his lips. “We all did.”

***

The first time they’d parted ways it’d been as subtle as Ethan slipping into the world of illicit substances and illegal activities thus leaving Spencer on his own. This time...this time it was as subtle as Hotch and Ethan’s fight with Reid nearly exploding with years of pent up anger.

For a good hour or two they argued; threw blame around and brought up past hurts buried over the years and never before addressed. By the time it was over Spencer had called Ethan a fucking druggie infant and Ethan informed Spencer that sucking off Hotch wasn’t good therapy for his daddy issues. It was Reid who hung up first and refused to pick up each time the other called back even after he knew Ethan just wanted to apologize.

It wasn’t until three days later, the case Reid and Hotch both threw their focus into now over, that Spencer called his long-time friend once again.

“Too early,” Ethan grumbled into the phone despite having answered it on the first ring...despite having clearly been waiting for the call.

“Don’t you ever get up before noon?” Spencer smiled, happy to already fall back into their old riffs. Relieved Ethan picked up at all.

“Not unless I gotta,” Ethan laughed back as he sat up. “I’m glad you called.”

“I, uh...I didn’t want to leave things, well, uh...”

“Like they’d been left?” Ethan offered.

“Yeah.”

“Don’t worry about it, Spencer.”

Reid sighed. “The things I said to you, they, uh...they weren’t fair.”

“Since when did we ever treat each other fair?” Ethan pointed out as accurately as Spencer had the night he sent Ethan to find Aaron. “Sorry I was an asshole.”

“I was too.”

“No more than I was.”

“You know I, uh, still care about you right?”

Ethan smiled into the phone. “A question that doesn’t need asking.”

“Do, uh...do you think we’ll ever get this right?”

“What? Us?”

“Yeah, us.”

“Couldn’t say,” Ethan shrugged. “But it’s worth trying every time.”

“How many times should we really try though? I mean, uh,” Spencer sighed. “How many times before we decide it’s never going to work?”

“Just one more, like always.”

Spencer smiled into the phone. "Keep in touch?"

"Of course." Ethan smiled just as much on his end.

***

_"What we call despair is often only the painful eagerness of unfed hope." ~ George Eliot_  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Unless and until I'm certain of where the tale will go from here I shall consider it finished. 
> 
> (Though other stories with these characters and/or pairings may appear and possibly be connected to this main tale in some way.)


End file.
